Food for a Healthier Australia
Unable to find tasty yet healthy muesli products on food shelves anywhere, naturopath Narelle Plapp set off to create her own.
Since 2006, Plapp has been developing Food for Health, Australia’s first heath food company to produce muesli-based products made without fructose or gluten. Based in the Melbourne area, the product range includes various mueslis and muesli bars for adults that contain oats, nuts and seeds, as well as kid-specific, nut-free muesli bars that are all free of wheat, sulphur, dairy, yeast or cane sugar – the ingredients she’s found in many other breakfast choices.
“So many cereals are loaded with sugar, so your best bet is a muesli for breaky,” Plapp writes on her company blog site. With the focus of combating childhood obesity – an epidemic that affects 1 in 4 children in Australia – Food for Health offers a nutritious way to start the day without sacrificing taste. The gluten-free bars, which sources local ingredients, won top honors with the “Gluten Free Sweet Snack Award” in the Healthy Food Guide’s 2010 Health Food Awards.
Within five years, Food for Health has become a multi-million dollar company with presence in big box stores throughout the country including Coles, Woolworths and Costco, as well as independent supermarkets and health food stores. They also export to five countries in Southeast Asia with plans to expand into China and other overseas markets.