Hemp-based bars take top innovation honours but you can’t buy them yet
A rural baker and a pharmacist have come up with a hemp-based protein bar but they need a law change to sell it.
Beefy Green founders Brad Lake and Brendon Mcintosh won a $85,000 prize package in a competition for startups making innovative food products, beating flavoured sheep milk, cricket patties, nitro coffee and an Indian condiment. But they can’t sell the bars until a legislation change allows hemp meal – now sold as animal feed – to be sold for human consumption.
Lake said the Health Ministry had assured him the rules would change early next month and Beefy Green was poised to take advantage of that, using their prize to scale up manufacturing to supply supermarkets.
Lake, a rural manager for ASB, said he got interested in the potential of hemp protein when he overhauled his diet to hasten recovery from shoulder surgery. Together he and pharmacist Mcintosh worked with a food technology company to come up with a recipe that includes cacao, dates and hemp protein. ’’
Foodstuffs South Island sponsored the competition, with support from the Ministry of Awesome and Christchurchnz, and it attracted 69 entrants from around the country.