There’s nothing Cassie Deschenes loves more than her time in the kitchen.
The twenty-five year old founder of Barnone has been baking clean fruit and nut bars since 2016.
“It all started with a banana maple bar. My mother and I worked on getting rid of refined sugar using maple syrup and honey. Then we got rid of eggs and used chia seeds to make it more vegan friendly,” she said. “We even went so far as to get rid of vegetable oil to replace it with fruits like bananas.”
Deschenes’ mother, a registered holistic nutritionist, was studying the benefits of minimizing animal protein in her diet at the time.
Hence the name Barnone for her bars, which Deschenes’ aunt coined.
Around that time Deschenes, who lives with cerebral palsy, was assisting with a Christmas craft fair to bolster the fundraising efforts of the Special Olympics. Deschenes is a competitor herself, in swimming, bowling and golf.
“I decided to sell my bars as a vendor at the fair and the sales were pretty good,” she said.
Cassie started to fill orders from family and friends. Social media also helped Barnone take flight.
Now the Indoor Market provides another avenue for her to sell her product, which has grown seven flavours, including cinnamon, chocolate, blueberry lemon oat bars, apple honey and chocolate peanut butter.
Bar eight could be coming soon as Deschenes’ good friend has requested a strawberry bar for the future.
Deschenes’ favourite is the chocolate peanut butter oat bar. Even after all these years, she will eat at least one bar per day. She said it’s a customer bestseller, too.
Barnones are good for snacking at home, on family vacations, and are great for plane rides and goodie bags, too.
Deschenes said she is inspired by Ryan Benoit, the owner and founder of the Positive Inception clothing and apparel store, and who also lives cerebral palsy. One day, Deschenes hopes to sell her wares from a storefront, too.
She’ll even settle for a cafe that would allow people of different abilities to do the serving.
Deschenes’ family will tell you she is the boss of the kitchen.
Her only real limitation is requiring a chair to work as she has an exaggerated startle reflex that causes her to fall quite easily.
Deschenes spends hours every week in the kitchen between the baking, the packaging and then the required computer work. Then every Saturday, she is off to the market from 8-2 p.m. to sell her bars.
Annette said she is inspired by her daughter’s ambition.
“After running our home kitchen around the clock, Cassie still wants to go to the gym three days a week, rock climb and find time for friends and family,” she said. “She’s really an inspiration.”
To learn more about Barnone, visit BarnoneByCassie.com. You can also follow Barnone on Instagram and Facebook.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s Eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
