Quaker revolutionizes the granola bar in September 1981


It was in September, they said. September 1981. That's when Quaker Oats, a company as old and reliable as the northern star, unleashed it upon the unsuspecting public. They called it the Quaker Chewy Granola Bar. It wasn't the rugged, outdoorsy, 'I'm-about-to-go-climb-a-mountain' granola bar. This was the 'I'm-about-to-go-watch-some-cartoons' granola bar.


These weren't Nature Valley bars, hard as a granite rock, crumbly as a dried-up riverbed - a thing you had to chew with a certain grim determination, like a prospector working on a mouthful of hardtack. Oh no! This was a granola bar that was…chewy! It wasn't a brick! It wasn't a jawbreaker! It was a paradigm shift! It was a thing of softness! Of moisture! A thing you didn’t have to hammer into submission before you could swallow it!


In '81, with inflation raging and gas prices wild, these bars were affordable, like the people's choice. Everybody from the projects to the suburbs was munchin' on 'em.


Quaker marketed it as the perfect on-the-go fuel: 100 calories of oats, sugar, corn syrup, and whatever dark magic they stirred in to make it stick. No artificial colors back then, just pure, unadulterated temptation wrapped in foil that crinkled like whispers in the night. Tear it open, and bam—that first bite. Sweet, sticky, with a hint of coconut lurking in the background like a secret sin.


By October, those bars were everywhere: in school vending machines, gas station coolers, even the glove compartment of your old man's Chevy Caprice Estate. Most importantly, they were in your lunchbox.


So the next time you unwrap that familiar little bar, whether it’s the chocolate chip or the peanut butter, just remember its genesis. September 1981. And maybe, just maybe, as you take that first bite, you’ll taste not just the oats and the chocolate, but a faint echo of that autumn long ago. 

Location: Ravenna, OH 44266, USA

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