Review: Cascadian Farm Organic Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

The whole purpose of companies passing out freebies sometimes is to generate interest for their company and/or a new product.  Cascadian Farm did this to me with some freebies that led to prior reviews and now, for the first time, I've spent some of my own money to pick up one of their products since the freebies got me so interested in their products.  That interest leads me to this review of the Cascadian Farm Organic Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bars that I picked up on sale at Kroger for $2.99.  Each box of these contains eight 0.78 ounce bars and each bar is 80 calories.  Each bar is also marketed as kid sized, but when you really look at this, these are just about the same size as Quaker's famous Chewy granola bars.  This flavor that I'm looking at today is also one of Quaker's most popular flavors as well, so it's a good comparison and regretfully, those two mentions aren't the first time in this review that you'll be seeing me compare to the two.

Being that this is a granola bar, the base of the bar is obviously granola and since I've already said I'm going to keep comparing these to the Quaker Chewy bars of the same flavor, I'll just go ahead and start.  The first comparison is that these are shorter and stouter than those Quaker bars as these bars are probably only about three inches long and have more girth than the long, thin Chewy bars.  Also, the granola in these Cascadian Farm bars are more loosely packed than the Quaker product and it is not bound together by peanut butter like the Quaker product.  As for similarities, both bars contain an ample amount of small chocolate chips and also the very much welcome and underutilized peanut butter chips (one of my favorites). Where this Cascadian Farm bar differs is that this bar includes peanut bits in the granola mix as well and Quaker does not have that.

In terms of taste, there's a distinct difference between these two.  While the Quaker bar definitely tastes sweet and strongly of peanut butter, this Cascadian Farm bar does not.  Actually, it doesn't really have any peanut butter flavor at all with the exception of the peanut butter chips, which along with the chocolate chips, melt in your mouth as you come across this with some decadent richness.  As for the rest of the bar, it's just a more airy (less tightly packed) granola that has some semi-strong peanut flavor from the peanut bits.  Actually, the peanut flavor strength is kind of surprising and those peanuts do add a bit of crunch to the soft granola chew.  All in all, this bar delivers the flavors that it advertises, but none of them stand out in any shape or form.

Buy It or Fly By It?  This was a solid tasting bar, so for that, I'll give it a BUY IT rating.  That said, in my perceived showdown versus the Quaker Chewy version of the same flavor, I've got to give the nod to the Quaker version.  I like the more tightly packed granola and stronger peanut butter flavor in the Quaker version, but that is just a personal preference.  If you are looking for something less manufactured and more healthy than the mass produced Quaker bar though, this Cascadian Farm is a more than viable alternative that provides a very similar experience.

BUY IT!!