Expo West: ‘Functional Candy Bar’ Harken Sweets Expands Lineup
New York startup Harken Sweets (#4952) is set to showcase the latest addition to its line of date-caramel candy bars this week at Natural Products Expo West.
Billed as “the first functional candy bar,” the products contain prebiotic fiber and no added sugar, featuring a milk chocolate-style coating made with oats.
The collection includes The Nutty One, with salted peanuts and nougat; and The Gooey One, with nougat; and the newest offering, The Crunchy One, with salty pretzel bits. Each bar is filled with a caramel based on dates. The bars are typically merchandised alongside other candy bars with a retail price of $3.49.
Harken Sweets debuted online last summer and began rolling out to retail shelves at the end of the year. The products are available at ShopRite, Fairway, Gourmet Garage and Pop Up Grocer.
Founder and CEO Katie Lefkowitz said she is gearing up for “a big national launch” this month.
Prior to creating the recipes, Lefkowitz led operations at Caulipower for four years, growing the frozen food brand “from the early days to over $100 million” in sales and catapulting a white-hot cauliflower craze.
“That experience taught me how us little guys can really transform these comfort food categories by just thinking about them a little bit differently,” Lefkowitz said. “That’s the concept of Harken, but instead of pizza, it’s a candy bar, and instead of cauliflower it’s the date fruit.”
Dates have gained popularity in recent years as a nutritious, lower-glycemic sweetener often described as “nature’s candy.” The fruit is used in a variety of applications, including snacks (Must Love, Joolies and Maxine’s Heavenly Cookies), frozen desserts (Holi Scoops), beverages (Pop & Bottle) and condiments (Good Food For Good and Yellowbird Organic Hot Sauce).
Years before “date Snickers” became a viral TikTok trend, notching more than 40 million views, Lefkowitz was whipping up her own date-sweetened treats in her kitchen.
Harken Sweets’ The Nutty One bar has 140 calories, 13 grams of fiber and 8 grams of sugar, while a Snickers bar has 250 calories, 1 gram of fiber and 28 grams of sugar.
“Fiber has just been such a focus for me in developing the product,” Lefkowitz said. “I did a lot of research before even starting this, and it turns out, nobody in this country gets enough fiber, and everybody’s focused on protein.”
Lefkowitz said the two initial flavors have exceeded expectations in both natural and conventional retailers, growing three to five times above projected velocities. She hopes the third variety will match or exceed that pace.
“This growth has allowed us to scale our operations quickly,” she said. “I’m lucky to have overseen ops for the growth trajectory at early days of Caulipower, so I had that experience to move quickly to meet demand.”
