Organic, Vegan and free from all 14 EU recognised food allergens… The products made by Rice Mice and Zero Zebra not only have fab names, but are utterly delicious and mean that even those of us with allergies, can enjoy treats!

Ulula was actually asked by one of our wonderful customers to find this brand and make it available to them through Ulula because they had heard such good things about them, and we are so in agreement! As children with allergies, and now as parents with children with allergies, anything that helps an allergy sufferer to feel ‘normal’ is a most fabulous thing to have in your lives.

So, it is a hard job for an Ulula taste tester, but somebody has to do it, and we can say, that hands down, the Zero Zebra Rice Choc Bar with Peppermint is the most minty, yummy chocolate we have all tasted this year – it is delicious, as are all the other flavours.

We asked Monika, the director and owner of Rice Mice and Zero Zebra what had inspired her to create this life changing brand for allergy suffered. As we expected – it is an inspiring, courageous and positive story, and here it is for you to enjoy too:

“In 2008, I founded Marthomi Allergy Free Foods in 2008 in Holland. One of my three children suffered from multiple food allergies and intolerances (milk, egg, peanuts, nuts, soya and many more). Back then, there were hardly any food alternatives, especially of the things that all kids love, like sweet treats.

I did a lot of market research and after long and careful consideration I decided to quit my existing career in order to spend all my time and energy on the topic ‘treats for children who suffer from food allergies’.

I set my goals very high: The products had to be free from all 14 EU recognized food allergens, each product should be vegan, only organic ingredients would be used and these should be from fair and sustainable sources.

I insisted that the production environment should be professional and certified to best food production standards, it should be possible to scale to large quantities and cross-contamination of allergens should be excluded as far as possible. On top of this, the products should taste great, the packaging should appeal to the target market and the product end-price must be in a fair range.

In 2008 (and even today) it was extremely challenging and ground-breaking to fulfil this list of requirements. I was told, more than often, by experienced international food production experts, that it is simply not possible to do all of this.

My enthusiasm and firm belief in my concept paid off and I found and convinced several partners to work with me.

In May 2009 I won a prize ‘Most Promising Innovative Entrepreneur’ at the Innobiz European SME Week 2009 in The Hague.

The best and most fun part was the creation of new and suitable recipes. Towards the end of 2009 I finally had the first pallet of Marthomi’s first product: the Zero Zebra Rice Choc Bar Original, complete with all the attributes I set out to achieve and without compromising on anything!

The company has two unique own brands  (Zero Zebra and Rice Mice) and we service our loyal customers throughout Europe.”

These wonderful products are perfect for ourselves, and perfect for presents too. They are exceptionally yummy and we look forward to you sharing with us how much you love them too.

And don’t fret – we know that you will be as happy as we are to hear from Monica that she has many more plans for these brilliant products in the future 🙂