Can a chocolate bar at a health food store taste better than cardboard?

Bahram Shirazi thinks so.

Years ago, Shirazi became convinced there were holes in the natural food industry—like a lack of healthy candy. And after working on Wall Street for about 18 years, he was burnt out and ready to do something different. His life was different now—he had a wife and a family that he wanted to spend more time with.

"I really wanted to start something from nothing," Shirazi explained. "I spent many months investigating what to do."

Shirazi had an epiphany of sorts when his son entered the Nyack school system.

"After we switched my son from private school to Nyack Elementary, within two weeks he was [upset] that mom and dad never introduced him to Twix and Kit Kat bars," Shirazi explained. "A light went off—the kid was right! There aren't many great, all-natural candy bars."

And so Q.bel was born. Shirazi took his idea to Whole Foods Supermarket, and the products were rolled out a year later. It took a lot of research and taste-testing to get the chocolate bar made to the right specifications, Shirazi explained.

And although Shirazi doesn't melt down the chocolate and mold out the bars himself, he and his family put all their love into the bars. In fact, they are even named after his wife, Isabel, who inspired to production with her natural, organic food upbringing. (The "Q" stands for quality food ingredients.) Everything is made naturally, and with simple ingredients. There are no artificial colors or preservatives.

Shirazi's kids don't complain about their lack of candy bars anymore. And they don't care what the name is on the package, as long as it tastes good in their mouths. When it comes down to it, taste is what is going to sell, Shirazi explained.

"In the beginning, we didn't realize the kids were sneaking off with these and eating them around the house," he added. "My wife found wrappers shoved in every hole in the house!"

(If a chocolate bar—all-natural or not—gets the approval of a kid, it must be tasty.)

Q.bel wafers rolls and wafer bars are no doubt a treat. They come in double dark chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate mint, regular dark and milk chocolate with peanut butter. Some are in the form of wafer bars—similar texture as kit kats—and other as wafer rolls.

Less than two years ago, in just its first year on the market, Q.bel hit an impressive milestone: over 1 million chocolates sold. They started at Whole Foods, but have since spread to about 1,200 stores nationwide.

As of last month, Q.bel became available for purchase online, too—check it out at Amazon.com/Grocery. Around the same time, an individually packaged wafer roll was introduced, as it was requested by many customers. Just the other day, an agreement was made with Stop 'n Shop Stores to start carrying Q.bel. This is the first mainstream supermarket to carry the products.

"It's incredible," Shirazi summed up. It's a lot of fun. When you are a small company, you are everything from mailroom to accounting to you name it." The family packages samples at their house, but now keeps them in a locked room to help them from disappearing into little mouths. 

"Be true. Be honest. Be good" is the motto of Shirazi's company and he takes it seriously. On the website, there is a chart of exactly what they are doing now, how they fall short, and what they would like to do in the future.

Q.bel can be found at Back to Earth in Nyack, A Matter of Health in Nanuet, Organica in Northvale and assorted Whole Food locations.