Kristine Tran stayed up until two in the morning searching LinkedIn for grocery buyers. One agreed to meet before she left Texas. She rented a car, drove from San Antonio to Dallas overnight, and listened to Matthew McConaughey's Greenlights for company. The meeting helped change the direction of the business she was building with her sister.
Kristine and Jess had started NUFS in Toronto as the pandemic began. Jess had just left her job. They were buying ingredients when the news came over the radio, and their carefully planned start suddenly looked very different. Kristine tells Tab how they kept finding ways to put their products in front of people, including handing out refrigerated snacks when stores and events were closed.
They eventually found an audience in Texas. A friend's recommendation led Kristine to Central Market, and a buyer's interest brought a new set of questions about distribution and production. Then their baking partner arrived with difficult news: he was considering bankruptcy. The conversations that followed helped lead NUFS toward the hot-honey crackers Tab and his family had tried at a grocery-store demo.
Tab wants to understand what goes into that small bag. Kristine explains what simple ingredients mean to her, why she chooses real honey rather than a honey flavoring, and how ingredients travel through a surprisingly complicated supply chain. Weather, transport, production partners, and the people stocking shelves all contribute to the price. Building a food company made that work visible to her in a way shopping never had.
The response to the crackers gave the sisters something equally valuable to listen to. Customers wrote to say they enjoyed the crunch and felt included in a food experience they had missed. Kristine describes wanting NUFS to bring pleasure and community back into eating. The same founder who drove overnight for a meeting was now hearing directly from the people she hoped would find her food.
