“We know that pulses are a very, very healthy food.”
– MARGARET HUGHES, CO-OWNER AND SALES MANAGER WI TH BEST COOKING PULSES
When the French voyageurs made their arduous journeys across this country’s lakes and rivers, they relied on dried, yellow peas to keep them paddling 14 hours a day.
The thick, hearty pea soup they made would remain a Manitoba food tradition.
Trouble is, few people make pea soup anymore.
That’s why the owners of a third-generation Manitoba business, Best Cooking Pulses at Portage la Prairie, decided to find a way to deliver the energy boost of peas in the 21st century.
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Trudy Heal and Margaret Hughes, sisters and co-owners of the company, have just launched a new made-in-Manitoba pea product – peas as a snack food. Organically grown in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Yumpeez are roasted split yellow peas available in either dill pickle or barbecue seasoning.
They unveiled their Yumpeez at a product launch on the grounds of the Festival du Voyageur at Fort Gibralter in Winnipeg last week.
The voyageurs carried their peas in sacks in their canoes; this new way to eat peas is snack food to carry in your bag or stash in your kids’ lunch boxes, the two women said. It’s a snack food aimed at those who’d like to eat healthy snacks, said Hughes.
“We know that pulses are a very, very healthy food,” said Hughes. Yumpeez are nut free, gluten free, lactose free, and high in fibre and protein. A single bag of Yumpeez supplies a quarter-cup of vegetables and a half an ounce of the meat and beans serving, according to the USDA Food Pyramid.
The 30-gram packets with a suggested retail price of $1.99 are now available at a variety of Winnipeg stores including organic and health food stores and specialty shops.
They initially created Yumpeez as a hook to attract customers to their booth at trade shows.
Best Cooking Pulses has been a Portage la Prairie-based processor and ingredient supplier to food makers since 1936, selling cleaned, dehulled, split and polished peas to both domestic and international markets. The company also produces pea fibre, pea bran meal, pulse flours and custom grinds.
Looking for something else in addition to bags of peas and flour to display in their trade show booth, they recalled their father, Geoff Heal, tried to make a roasted pea snack back in the 1960s. It flopped. That’s because people weren’t so concerned with healthy food back then, says Heal.
“It was the wrong idea for the wrong decade,” says Heal.
This time they thought it might work. They sought help from staff at the nearby Food Development Centre to create their first batch of roasted peas to hand out at conventions in 2007.
The snacks were a hit with customers as well as at home. Hughes discovered her sons and husband dipping into her limited stash of trade show pea snacks. The boys liked taking them to school and told her the “snack police” at school approved. Her husband, a medical doctor, said he appreciated them as a snack during long hours on call when he didn’t have time to stop to eat.
“He said it was really sustainable energy,” said Hughes.
It’s taken nearly three years of product development and market testing to create Yumpeez. There was long discussion around what to call them, said Heal.
Hughes’ oldest son came up with the name. “They’re yummy and they’re peas,” he said. “They’re Yumpeez.”
Yumpeez is a perfect example of the
innovations the wider pulse industry is encouraging in food product development, with the aim of boosting North American consumption of all types of pulses, including more beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils.
Results of a series of research trials released earlier this month at a health and food symposium show eating more pulses, including peas, on a daily basis can help ward off chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
Hughes cited another recent study done at University of Saskatchewan showing pulses can boost the energy of young soccer players. Feeding pre-game players a meal of lentils helped them sprint faster.
That’s the origin of their trademarked marketing pitch “snack to win.”
“Flavour and crunch with energy punch, Yumpeez takes you into overtime,’” said Hughes.
Best Cooking Pulses has another processing plant in Rowatt, Saskatchewan.
Yumpeez was developed with assistance from the Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative (ARDI), a granting agency funded by both provincial and federal government and by the Manitoba Agri-Innovation Suite.
More information about Yumpeez is found at www.yumpeez.com.[email protected]
