The walls and ceiling shine with a freshly painted glow. The space, already half-complete with modern stylings, is brightly lit with the aid of natural light streaming in from Portage Avenue.
To fully understand her excitement—and appreciate the years of hard work it took to get to this point—it’s best to start at the beginning of her story.
“I’m a Garden City girl. I grew up in the North End, but graduated from Kelvin High School in 1991,” she explains.
From there, Zealand attended St. Boniface College, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree thinking she was going to be a pharmacist. After some reflection and to the delight of her father who was an accountant himself, she enrolled at the University of Manitoba and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1999 before going on to complete her accounting designation.
“I articled at KPMG and loved working there. I ended up transferring with the company to Calgary in 2002 and went on to gain experience as a senior accountant for the firm.”
In 2004, Zealand went on maternity leave. “I was pregnant with my first child, a boy, and I never went back,” she laughs.
Staying connected to her career was important to Zealand, and she did so by teaching accounting, tax and finance to CA School of Business program candidates.
By 2009, she and her husband had moved back to Winnipeg and welcomed twin boys. Looking back, the birth of her children turned out to be a catalyst for Cranked Energy.
“After the twins were born life got busier and I was searching for grab-and-go healthy food and I couldn’t find it. Everything on the shelf tasted terrible or had so many chemicals in it, so I decided I was going to make this for my family, in my own kitchen,” explained Zealand, who has always had a passion for health, wellness and physical fitness.
Over the next three years she refined her energy bar recipe and process.
“Protein and health bars can taste pretty chalky and we had a lot of bad trays of bars,” Zealand recalls. “Then one day after again tinkering with the recipe and changing the ingredients, I made a tray of bars that my husband and kids really liked.”
After more friends and family weighed in, she decided to see if others liked them too.
“I did one Facebook post to see what would happen and I sold 700 bars in one month,” she says. “My bars are fresh and found in the fridge, not on the shelf. My goal was to make them taste like a guilt-free dessert, which really resonated with people.”
From there, she decided to turn her energy bars into a business.
“Over the last two years I moved into different rental kitchens to scale, and it came to a point where even that wasn’t enough. It was time to look for a place to lease and this one came up.”
“This one” is the soon-to-be fully renovated storefront at 1853 Portage Avenue. The new space is equipped with a fully functional commercial kitchen that is already making an impact.
“Locally, we’ve gone from 700 bars a month to almost 10,000 a month. I used to worry about ordering one 10-kilogram pail of peanut butter and I recently ordered 2000 kilograms. We just launched a brand new website last week [crankedenergy.com]. All of our growth has come from word of mouth… who knows what this new marketing will do.”
Although her background is in accounting, Zealand’s role at Cranked Energy is far more diverse.
“I wouldn’t be the well-rounded entrepreneur I am today If I didn’t obtain my accounting designation. I do all of the actual bar making, signing distributors, managing sales, purchasing, negotiating contracts, visiting retailers, deliveries, events, and am the face of the company. The only thing I don’t do is my accounting,” jokes Zealand.
Like many entrepreneurs, she is at the point where she can’t keep up with every aspect of her business.
“I know the accounting side is important and so I knew I needed help when I became unable to devote enough time to it.”
A CPA now helps Zealand with the everyday accounting needs of her business, although she still regularly reviews and keeps up with the numbers.
“I am so lucky that I’m able to blend my biggest passions together: the accounting side of me along with the health, wellness and creative side of me. I truly do live every day doing the things I’m most passionate about.”