Alberta-based company targets healthy-conscious snackers and endurance athletes
Leanna Carriere (Personal Fitness Trainer ’10) always wants to know what’s in the food she eats.
Her career as an endurance athlete includes nearly a decade as an accomplished pole vaulter, recognition as Canada’s first female decathlete to compete internationally, a high-elevation marathon at Mt. Everest, and more. Energy-sustaining fuel has been essential throughout.
But Carriere’s discerning nature also applies to casual snacking. If she’s craving chocolate with an evening glass of wine, she doesn’t want to be disappointed by unpronounceable ingredients on the package. Too often, she has been. So she talked to her sister, Kristyn, a food scientist who once worked at Cadbury.
“I couldn't find a product that spoke to me as an athlete and as someone who loves a good snack at the end of the night,” says Carriere. Could the pair team up to combine flavour and high-quality calories for those eating either with purpose or for pleasure?
Since 2021, that goal has sustained 7 Summits Snacks, their Alberta-based company that hopes its focus on simple, whole ingredients – along with help from NAIT – will make it a major contender in the national market and beyond.
How does NAIT help food-oriented businesses?
Honey, I clogged the chocolate machine
Already, Seven Summits has reached notable heights on its own.
Since inception, it has produced chocolate bars themed and named for the seven highest mountains of each continent. The “Everest” includes Himalayan salt, for example, the “Denali” – North America’s highest peak – features wild blueberries, and more. They’re available at select retailers across Canada (and direct from 7 Summits).
The company even earned an Alberta Food and Beverage Award in 2024.
But while novel flavours may set 7 Summit’s large-format “superfood” bars apart, there’s more to the slimmer “endurance” versions made for active, rather than just indulgent, living.
As an athlete, Carriere has known the sugar spike of energy gels and bars boasting easy-to-digest carbohydrates. A short burst of power, however, doesn’t go very far in a lengthy endurance event. To stretch that boost, 7 Summits endurance bars include nutrient-rich coconut butter.
“This is a slow releasing sugar because of the fat content of the coconut butter and the chocolate,” says Carriere.
To help match the carbohydrate profile of conventional gels, the endurance bars also feature honey, a rich sugar that the body takes time to digest. That addition led the company to partner with the Centre for Culinary Innovation (part of NAIT’s Applied Research department), which can often access funding to support development efforts for small businesses.
“The more heads you have on a project, the more likely you are to actually fix the problem.”
Besides being hard on machinery owing to its thickness, honey can interfere with the chocolate itself. Kristyn had already been using bench space at the centre to work on 7 Summits when she reached out to staff for “a little bit of reformulation,” says project lead Haley Donadeo (Culinary Arts ’22).
“The more heads you have on a project, the more likely you are to actually fix the problem.”
Under Donadeo’s guidance, Culinary Arts student Janik Hettinger is currently putting his experience as a chocolate specialist from Germany to work on the problem. The work is an exhaustive analysis of variables.
For example, moisture in the honey, says Hettinger, may be causing instability in the finished chocolate. Also, some honey sugars have a low melting point that could be triggered by friction in the machinery, leading to clogging. Or, the complex carbohydrate may inhibit proper tempering, the heating and cooling of chocolate needed to transform it into treats.
The project has involved heads from outside NAIT as well, as Hettinger has consulted with his network back in Germany, the world’s largest exporter of chocolate.
He’s confident about finding a solution, and excited about the outcome. In Germany, he’s been proud to see products for sale that he helped refine. But for him it’s just as sweet to participate in the personal journeys clients make from lab bench to store shelves.
“It feels like the product is their baby, and they show so much passion for it,” says Hettinger. “It's nice to help them.”
Adventures to come
The company is growing steadily, says Carriere. “Kristyn says it's just like our chocolate: It's a slow burn, like a slow release of energy.”
Besides the sticky situation caused by the honey, there are other hurdles to clear. Cocoa prices have surged since 2023, mostly due to a global shortage, inflating production costs. That may exacerbate the challenge of increasing distribution. Currently, some larger retailers are hesitant, saying the price point is too high.
“It’s a chicken and egg thing,” says Carriere. If just one major chain would commit, it would allow 7 Summits to buy bulk packaging at a better rate, lowering that price point. For now, that also puts the U.S. market out of reach.
But, added to the success of the product so far, sheer stamina and determination may take Carriere across whatever finish line she envisions. At the time of the interview for this story, she was preparing for a 30-day cycling trip with her partner across Canada in July – “fuelled by chocolate,” says Carriere.
It was a warm-up for a self-powered expedition planned for 2025. “Wings of Survival” will take the pair from Alaska to Patagonia in an effort to raise awareness of the importance of biodiversity, particularly migratory birds.
Undoubtedly, the 30,000-kilometre journey will also raise awareness of the business. Just as she did from Halifax to Vancouver, Carriere will take the snacks from the edge of one continent to that of another – if not the other way around.
Banner image by Katrina Hay