it happened exactly like this

A couple of people looked me straight in the eye a while ago talking about a health bar. They told me it is sooo good, and sooo good for you, and they were surprised I didn't know of it since it is Swedish. I didn't say much, because I thought they were wrong. I thought I would know about something that actually came from my homeland.

Then I forgot all about it until I was in Safeway some days later. I went over to the shelves of health bars to look for something Swedish.
And there it was. The Lära Bar. Nothing signals a Swedish product like that 'ä', right?

So I turned it over. The corporate offices are in Denver, Colorado. According to the company website, the founder's name is Lara, and she had the idea for the product while on a hike in the Rocky Mountains.

Nothing Swedish there, except for Lara turning herself into Lära.

When looking for information just now, I naively googled 'Lära Bar'. No hits. Then I googled 'Lara Bar', and there it was. The 'ä' is not a letter, is just there to be pretty. You get the point. The idea is that if you use those weird looking letters, your product becomes healthier. In the mind of the American consumer, it even becomes Swedish.

The company also produces something they refer to as JŎCALAT. More of the weird looking letters. I googled that too. I found a site that describes the JŎCALAT Lärabar. It also makes references to the MAYA bar, and talks about how the ancient MAYA civilization first brought the chocolate to the world.

So there you have it: Want to market overpriced chocolate bars with nuts and fruit in them to people who are exceptionally health conscious, and don't think of themselves as chocolate eaters? It's easy! Just mix and match a few cultural references, make your product look sleek and clean and springing from the ancient civilizations. Make it Mayan-Scandinavian. People will gobble it up.