Local Food: Eat Green Foods

By Carrie Becker in Food on Sep 29, 2010 3:20PM

Chef Joshua Kulp and Chef Christine Cikowski of Sunday Dinner, known for their locally-grown food focused catering business, get rave reviews from their guests and clients but their granola bars have always been highest on the request list. Listening to their fans and looking for business growth they created, Eat Green Foods. The company, so their website reads, is dedicated to producing a line of foods, “made with a consciousness that supports all things local and sustainable, from ingredients to packaging to economy.” Currently, the company focuses their efforts solely on granola bars.

We grabbed one, the peanut butter and chocolate variety, while getting our Intelligentsia fix one morning. We were hooked halfway through that granola bar, which was larger than most, delivering a nice crunch but still moist. So, we tracked down Chef Josh Kulp to learn what makes these “local, seasonal, sustainable” bars one of our new favorite morning treats and ask, "how local are they?"

“We make all our bars out of Kitchen Chicago, a shared kitchen in the Fulton Market area, every Monday; wrap them on Tuesday and make deliveries the following day. The majority of the ingredients are sourced locally." Kulp continued, "There's one caveat - the organic oats are guaranteed to be milled in Iowa, but are not guaranteed to be from Iowa. They may be from a handful of states in the Midwest or as far as Ontario.

"Outside of the Organic oats, our cherries are from Michigan, honey from Wisconsin, pecans from Missouri. All ingredients are as close as you can get them.” Kulp further reinforced that they continue to strive to find ways to get local oats while also keeping the bars at a good price. In the meantime, we’re happy to support their efforts by enjoying the pecan and honey or maybe the tart cherry on our next coffee run.

Eat Green Foods granola bars are available at Intelligentisia (Millenium Park), Whole Foods, Goddess & Grocer (Gold Coast and Bucktown), Dill Pickle Food Coop and specialty shops throughout the city.