In 2002 Alex Smith and Jimmy Docherty started making homemade recipes to create tasty, nutritious food for their adventures. A little later they created Fuel For Adventure, turning the heat on with a view to launching their products on a commercial scale. Several years on, Mule Bar are now an established brand in adventure racing with sponsored athletes.  The have progressed into supporting events including the Absa Cape Epic and the Tour of Britain.

The Mule Bar range has recently expanded to include gels but it is the core Mule Bar and Mule Refuel products which embody the company’s origins. While many energy snacks can be sickeningly loaded with sugar, Mule Bar use natural ingredients to create a palatably nutritious taste that’s packed with energy. With expanding inventory, some description is needed to explain the products in the Mule Bar brand.

“Mule Bars” are formulated to give you energy on the go, containing roughly 1006 KJs of energy in a 65g bar (working out 1592 KJs per 100g) and less protein than their ‘Refuel’ neighbours. Recently, a smaller ‘Mega Bite’ version was released which contains the same nutritional punch but in a 30g packet. Mule Bar flavours include some imaginative tastes: Strudel, Liqourice, Summer Pudding, Mango Tango, Hunza Nut, Pinacolada and Chocolate Fig Fiesta.

“Mule Refuel” snacks are recovery products with 13 grams of protein per 65g (versus the Mule Bar’s 5g for the same weight). Although I didn’t notice any change in my recovery through using these products over a week, they replenished my immediate energy stores after some long runs really well. There flavours are less adventurous than the Mule Bar, consisting of Chocolate Banana and Chocolate Date only. Mule Refuel is noticeably more palatable than other protein bars that I have tried.

Mule Bars retail at £1.49 (65g) while the smaller Mega Bite versions (30g) go for £0.90 a packet from Evans Cycles. Muel Refuel can also be purchased from Evans Cycles, at £1.95 (65g) per packet. Alternatively you can buy 24-pack boxes of Muel Bars from mulebar.com which cuts costs a little.

Find out more about Mule Bar, visit mulebar.com