Staff morale at Hubbards has reached fever pitch following company founder Dick Hubbard’s success in the Auckland mayoralty race and now the company's Light & Right cereal taking out the top nutrition award at the recent Massey University Food Awards.

Hubbards marketing manager, Julia van de Coolwijk, said the Light & Right berry, apricot, peach and feijoa product range had picked up two top honours at the Awards including the Imaje Coding Technologies Cereal and Bread Products Award and the coveted National Heart Foundation of New Zealand Nutrition Award.

Julia said the development and subsequent launch of Light & Right in November 2002 had arisen after the company identified an opportunity to fuse consumer needs for lower fat foods with Hubbards' reputation for innovation and the use of fruit in cereals.

"Prior to the launch of Hubbards' Light & Right, none of the cereals in the low fat segment were associated with a specific single fruit flavour," Julia said.

"The market standard was a wheat flake base, with some other grains added and predominantly raisins, sultanas and processed apricot pieces as added fruits. The opportunity lay in creating a range of single fruit cereals, unified by the nature of their cereal base, wheat and rice, but differentiated by their single fruit flavour - but not raisins or sultanas."

In developing the product, the yoghurt coated flake was born as an offshoot of Hubbards' muesli signature yoghurt coated raisins.

"Meeting the Heart Foundations' strict nutrition standards for fat, saturated fat, salt, added sugars and fibre, so that the Hubbards' Light & Right range could carry the Heart Foundation's Tick, was a critical part of the product development process."

Since launching Light & Right, sales have exceeded all expectations to the point where Light & Right Berry is now one of the company’s top performing products.