A Wider World of Snacks
"Crunchy walnuts coated with a layer of chewy fruit juice. Finding a way to describe it is one of the biggest challenges we face,” says Daniel Nielsen, co-owner of Chella. He’s speaking of churchkhela (pronounced church- ELLA), a traditional snack from Georgia, in eastern Europe, where co-owner Mark Dubman’s family has roots.
In the company’s commissary kitchen, bundles of churchkhelas hang from metal racks to dry. The strings of fruit-juice-coated nuts look like sausages hung to cure, albeit sweet ones. Nielsen acknowledges that the uniqueness of the product is a double- edged sword; it’s intriguing but requires some explanation. He calls it a “sweet, but not-too-sweet, dessert,” and likens the texture of the fruity exterior to a fruit roll-up from the lunch boxes of school days gone by.
Grandma’s recipe
Dubman’s grandmother, originally from Georgia, introduced the business partners to churchkhela when she brought some back after visiting her homeland. Dubman remembers eating it a few times as a kid, but a more recent introduction, where he shared it with friends, provided the kernel for the business idea. Nielsen and Dubman had been interested in starting a business together, but hadn’t yet found the right idea. Encouraged by Dubman’s father, they began to seriously consider making churchkhela. Part of the appeal was that the product is not particularly well known here. The two were also intrigued by the history of the snack, whose roots that can be traced back 3,000 years.
In a labourious process, walnuts are threaded with a needle, then the walnut strings are dipped in a mixture of warmed, thickened fruit juice and brushed with the sticky mixture until coated. Finally, the strings are hung to dry for two to three weeks.
Vancouver’s mild climate and elevated levels of moisture have proven a challenge for the drying process, so it took the partners some time in the beginning to get the balance right, and they still sometimes use fans to speed the process along. The result is a chewy fruit and nut snack that can be kept without refrigeration for up to six months.
In Georgia, churchkhela is cut into pieces and offered with tea to visitors as a ritual of hospitality. Here in Canada, the company touts the convenient size and high energy content of churchkhela, which make it an obvious choice for a hiking or camping snack, and a unique addition to a charcuterie board.
Local flavours
Traditional Georgian churchkhela is flavoured with the must of white or red grapes. Chella uses red grapes and, where possible, sources fruit juice from Abbotsford. The lads from Chella have also developed other, less-traditional flavours. Nielsen describes the company’s apple pie version as being “more recognizable” for Canadian audiences, but you can also find pomegranate and apricot, although the shortage of B.C. stone fruit in 2024 has put the apricot flavour on hold for now.
Besides using as much local product as possible, being waste-free is also important for Chella. Any leftover ingredients are made into Chella Bites — what the partners call a “modern twist” on the traditional snack. Chella Bites have the same components as churchkhela but in a more bite-size format. They’re made by spreading the fruit paste on a flat surface and sprinkling it with walnuts before cutting into pieces.
A third Chella product is Sweet Sujuk, similar to churchkhela in that it’s made with fruit and nut ingredients, but it’s rolled into a sausage shape. While these are popular in Turkey, having originated in the Ottoman Empire, the sweet sujuk Chella offers comes in several flavours including cherry, plum and kiwi.
Currently, Nielsen and Dubman are focused on expanding their reach through retail partners as well as researching new lesser-known snacks from around the world that they can bring to consumers, which is where they see the company’s future. “The goal is to find different snacks from around the world that have been forgotten and lost in time, and to revive them,” Nielsen says.
Chella
chellasnacks.com | @chellacanada
Find it at: Krause Berry Farms (Langley), Vegan Supply (Vancouver and Surrey) and Whole Foods
