Kingston, New York

 

The story behind the creation of Grok Bites begins with a husband and wife who met online, but not on a dating site, on a social media site called happier. Heidi was doing a “happiness tele-summit” as part of her job as a life coach, which she’d been doing for fifteen years. Heidi’s now husband, Peter, thoroughly enjoyed her summit and ended up reaching out to speak with her more after it had ended. For a year following Heidi’s summit, the two talked regularly over Skype. After that first year, Heidi flew to the UK and stayed for three months, solidifying what they already knew, that they were quite a dynamic duo. Peter then followed Heidi a few months later to the states and the two got married.

While Heidi was spending time with Peter in the UK the first time around, they had been on the road frequently. Admitting that she is a sugarholic, but wanting to eat healthier and still get her sugar fix, Heidi found bars in the UK that had really great ingredients. They perfectly suited her craving for sweets and concern about processed sugar. Heidi didn’t expect the bars to taste great, but they were convenient, and to their surprise, they were also delicious.

“I don’t care how healthy it is, if it doesn’t taste good, I’m not going to eat it”

Fast forward, Heidi and Peter are married, living back in the U.S., and can no longer get their healthy, convenient snack. They also couldn’t find anything that compared in terms of the whole, natural ingredients, so instead, they just made their own. At some point, it became expensive and tedious to continue making them all the time for themselves. So, they began making larger batches for cheaper sharing the extra with friends. Of course, it didn’t take long for their friends to begin encouraging them to make their healthy snacks for the masses.

Heidi and Peter’s business really took off as a project for Peter while he was waiting to get his green card. Worried he would be bored out of his mind waiting through the process, he began coming up with new recipes for their favorite homemade bars.

But how did they come up with the name? After deciding that their snacks would be made for the public, Heidi and Peter started to look at the market for inspiration. All of the noteworthy natural bars at the time had four-letter names, so they began brainstorming. Heidi previously had a line of intention jewelry and one piece had the four-letter word “grok” on it. The word “grok” comes from the book, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, which Heidi explained means, “to know on a deep intuitive level” which ties into their tagline, “a deeper understanding with every bite”.

Since Heidi and Peter began making Grok Bites for the public they were always required to use a commercial kitchen because they work with raw nuts. Their adventure began in a small space in Accord, NY, where they stayed for about a year. In that same year, they got to know more people in the food and beverage community of the Hudson Valley. After becoming acquainted with Corinna and Jason Geib, owners of ImmuneSchein, Heidi and Peter got a chance to use space in their kitchen for a year following the kitchen in Accord. Through Jason Geib, Heidi and Peter then found out about Cornell Creative Business and Arts Center, which is where Grok Bites are currently being produced.

Located in Kingston, NY, Grok Bites has its own commercial kitchen “pod” amongst five other local food and beverage producers. Their bites are trademarked as “raw, vegan, soy free, fruit and nut snack bars”. The eight different flavors that they make include Cherry Orchard, Chocwork Orange, Jalapeno Surprise, Ma Cha Cha, Nutty Expressor, Purple Rain, Very Berry, and Tropix. Each one starts with a base of dates, raisins, brazil nuts, and almond flour. The dry ingredients are ground and mixed separately from the moister ones, and then each batch is hand pressed into molds, blast chilled, hand-cut, bagged, sealed, and labeled. Aside from the base, each flavor is a bit different with their own superfoods.

Since 2016, the Grok Bites product line has grown beyond their initial product. Today they also make superfood blends and their newest addition, superfood sipping chocolates called, “sacred sipping chocolate”. The blends are sourced very carefully and combined as their very own proprietary blends. The blends are based on what benefits they want their customers to receive. One of which is for brain function and mental clarity, another for energy and physical performance, and the third is for adrenal support and stress relief. One of the main ingredients for their superfoods is Baobab which comes from the Baobab trees in West Africa and Australia. This particular ingredient is a natural electrolyte, has ten times the vitamin C of an orange, 9 times the potassium of a banana, and helps the other ingredients work more effectively.

While the Grok Bites were more Peter’s creation and the blends were more Heidi’s, the sipping chocolates have really been a combination of the two. Peter has always been a hot chocolate fanatic, unfortunately, most hot chocolates are chock-full of processed ingredients. Together they decided to make hot chocolate with superfoods, one with maca and turmeric, one with cayenne and ginger, and another with reishi and chaga mushrooms. Each one made with raw Peruvian cacao, customers can choose how they wish to sweeten them.

Heidi and Peter try to source locally as often as they possibly can, but because the main ingredient for their bites is nuts, it gets tricky. What they tend to do is add local ingredients that are in season to their Grok Bites such as apples or strawberries.

Grok Bites are made fresh every week with whole ingredients that generally aren’t shelf stable beyond six weeks. While this is a selling point for them, it also makes it hard for the online and retail space. Although their reach is limited in that reserve, Peter and Heidi are happier catering to their local customers who know, love and appreciate that their product does not contain any preservatives. In the future, however, they do hope to try and partner with another local creator to try and find a natural ingredient that can help extend the shelf life of Grok Bites. Their natural ingredients are something that they stand by wholeheartedly and it is not something they would ever want to compromise.

Grok Bites can be found in many of the local coffee shops and cafes primarily. They can also be found at the Kingston, New Paltz, Beacon, and Poughkeepsie farmer’s markets in the warmer months. In addition, Grok Bites have also found quite a niche in yoga studios and yoga shows as well.

As a fairly new company, three years old in this year, Grok Bites would like to grow to be a well known company in the Northeast and the hope is that their blends will then expand more nationally because they can be sold online. Most importantly they want to continue to create their products sustainably in the Hudson Valley.

 

 

CONTACT

Phone: (845) 384 – 2264
Click Here to visit Grok Bites’s Website