Sharpham Park Bran Flakes review

Last year, I reviewed a selection of products from Sharpham Park - their Organic Spelt Berry Puffs, Tomato & Chilli Speltotto and their Organic Pearled Spelt. Now, you might be scratching your head about now wondering what spelt is. Sharpham Park explain : "With tons of iron, zinc, riboflavinand other vitamins and minerals, spelt is one of today's healthiest grains. In addition, because of its unique gluten structure, it is much easier to digest than its distant cousin wheat." (Please note however that spelt contains spelt gluten so it is not suitable for diagnosed coeliacs.) All Sharpham Park spelt is 100% organic and is milled in a purpose built on-site mill at Sharpham Park in Somerset. It is the only dedicated organic spelt mill in the UK.

This time, they sent us through a box of Crunchy Spelt Bran Flakes to try out. This is the first and only British Spelt Bran Flake range so they've put out the flags, quite literally, emblazoning the boxes with a bold Union Jack design that is perfect for this Diamond Jubilee/London Olmypics extravaganza year.

We received a box of Crunchy Spelt Flakes with Berries, but you can also get Crunchy Spelt Flakes with Dates & Walnuts or original Crunchy Spelt Flakes. The box promises "deliciously light spelt and rice flakes" with raspberries and blackberries. My only complaint is that there is very little fruit in the box. I had to sift through the bowlful that I poured out above to find the three berries in the photo. Maybe there are more berries near the bottom of the box but I was a bit disappointed by the low proportion of fruit. A quick bit of investigating reveals that it contains 3% Whole freeze dried Blackberries and 2% Whole freeze dried raspberries which doesn't sound a lot.

I souped up the bran flakes by adding some fresh chopped strawberries (from our trip to the pick-your-own farm the day before) which worked really well and which added enough sweetness that I didn't need to add any sugar. The bran flakes taste about the same as regular bran flakes but they do seem lighter and less "bitty" and gritty than normal bran products. I had the bowlful you can see above for dinner last night and that filled me up and avoided any snack cravings for the rest of the evening.

One 45g serving contains 163 calories, 2.6g of sugar, 1.2g of fats of which less than 0.3g saturates and 4.4g of fibre. Tastewise, they're really nice - much nicer than I expected actually - and I'll enjoy munching my way through the rest of the box, adding different dried and fresh fruits to the mix each time.

Sharpham Park has also created a simple how to guide to make your celebratory bunting and flags for the upcoming summer celebrations for the Jubilee and Olympics. Just watch the video above to find out how to transform your bran flake boxes into some funky patriotic decorations ! 

star rating : 4/5

RRP : £3.99 for 375g

for more information : http://www.sharphampark.com/buy-our-products-online/crunchy-spelt-bran-flakes

Other reviews you may be interested in :

Sharpham Park Organic Spelt Berry Puffs

Sharpham Park Tomato & Chilli Speltotto 

Sharpham Park Organic Pearled Spelt