Activity

Make a snack bar

In this activity, students develop their knowledge of food and product development to produce a snack bar for a specific target market. The purpose is to make an appealing snack bar while understanding that energy from food components should match energy needs (energy in and energy out).

Baked snack bars fresh from the commercial oven.

Snack bars

Baked snack bars fresh from the oven.

Rights: The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato

The activity contains opportunities for literacy, numeracy and technology.

Older students can determine the nutritional values of their snack bars and use the online Health Star Rating Calculator to obtain an estimated Health Star Rating.

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

  • discuss how different foods have different amounts of energy that is released into the body at different rates

  • discuss some of the terminology used in food labelling

  • consider the role of consumer research and sensory testing when making a new food

  • design a label for their snack bar.

Muesli bars with chocolate drizzled icing.

Muesli bars

Muesli bars are a convenient snack, but how healthy are they?

Rights: Plant & Food Research

Download the Word file (see link below) for:

  • background information for teachers

  • equipment list

  • teacher instructions

  • student instructions.

Related content

High-value nutrition products are a growing and important industry for New Zealand. Read about the process in Developing healthy food products – an introduction .

The Australian and New Zealand governments are conducting a review of the Health Star Rating system for food. This article looks at the systems drawbacks and ways to move forward.

Useful links

See the Health Star Ratings and food labelling section on the Ministry for Primary Industries’ website.

Find the nutritional value of foods using the NutritionValue website.

Published: 23 December 2009,Updated: 29 September 2017