LOS ANGELES — Alex Duong’s goal was to formulate a healthier snack for consumers facing dietary restrictions, which resulted in Fair and Square Crackers.

“We’re trying to be an inclusive snack brand,” Duong said. “The idea is to make snacks that are inclusive for individuals that either have dietary restrictions or have family members with restrictions. Everyone eats food and I want to share the joy of food together.”

Coming into the snacking category, Duong felt pressure to perform against the bigger companies like Lay’s, so he sought after crackers.

“Chips are an incredibly crowded category,” he said. “There hasn’t been a go-to-market chip brand in a few years. All these major brands that are in the race, I just didn’t want to play in the space (chips).”

 Duong formulated his crackers with the intent of improving the consumers’ overall gut health. The crackers are gluten-free and plant-based. The main ingredient making the crackers gut-friendly is green banana flour, due to its high fiber content that supports healthy digestion.

Founder Alex Duong formulated crackers that were inclusive of all dietary restrictions. Photo: Its Fair and Square Crackers

“Gut health is really the key to well-being,” Duong said. “Those who don’t have dietary restrictions I think gut health comes into play because it plays into overall well-being and if they don’t eat well, it hurts their stomachs even more. It’s this balance of understanding regardless of whether or not you believe in gut health, it’s very much a real thing that affects everybody.”

Prior to founding his company, Duong was head of procurement and demand planning for Thrive Market. During this time, he began noticing green banana flour was increasing in popularity among consumers.

 “I was in charge of figuring out how much of each item we would buy, when we would buy it and how often,” he said. “A big part of my job was understanding, empathizing with the consumer and understanding micro and macro trends. I researched banana flour and learned it was a gut friendly ingredient that many early adopting consumers were putting into their smoothies.”

After learning more about the ingredient, Duong began testing it in his kitchen to see how it would bake in crackers.

“I was playing around with it some more and it really baked nicely,” he said. “I wanted the flour to be accessible in a format of a snack, which is where we landed with the crackers.”

Duong formulated his product over 400 times in his kitchen to perfect the shape and thickness of the crackers — and making sure the banana flour would work before going to production.

“I was working with a classically trained baker to emulate the process on how they would actually make crackers at large scale,” he said. “I used those pieces of metal that hold very large pieces of equipment like when you buy a stove or refrigerator when they ship them, they’re on the outside those metal straps to hold things together so it doesn’t move. Those are made to an industrial level to a specific thickness. So, I knew the exact thickness of my cracker.”

Making sure his product would work at scale was important to Duong before going to a co-packer.

“I tried to emulate a sound and industrial process as possible so I don’t say, oh I took my mom’s recipe, can you try to recreate my mom’s recipe on an industrial level when I’m actually starting with where they’re at,” he said.

Since green banana flour is a staple ingredient in his crackers, Duong found it difficult to find a manufacturer that would meet his business’s needs. After a long search, Duong found a manufacturing co-packer out of Seattle who appreciates his product for its clean label ingredients.

“I looked for about a year until I found someone who I really wanted to work with and was willing to do what I wanted to do,” he said. “We went to over 25 co-packers and the thing that I learned is that there’s plenty of people in the space who say they’re invested in doing things like banana flour, but it comes down to the fact that they were unable to be open to innovation and changing some of their processes.”  

The crackers first began in non-traditional food spaces like corporate offices, doctor’s offices, colonoscopy and oncology centers, and even the Dallas Fort-Worth school districts.

“This led us into retail spaces, first in Whole Foods in 2020 and Sprouts in August 2023 and now Amazon, which is our big focus right now,” Duong said. “We really want to drive impact with our business but also understand that food service is an important part of our business.”

Finding momentum in Whole Foods and Sprouts before expanding further into bigger retail spaces is Duong’s deep focus for his business.

“Creating a playbook that is scalable and sustainable and meaningful to the consumer and retailer is a top goal,” he said.

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