Meet Fair & Square: AAPI-Owned, Gluten-Free Snacks for the Office

In some ways, Alex Duong’s cracker brand, Fair & Square, is a metaphor for his Asian American identity. He grew up eating Chinese food at big family potlucks, and those memories helped inspire his company’s gluten-free snacks for the office break room. 

His crackers are organic, dairy-free, and allergy-friendly—so almost everyone can enjoy them. But Alex is quick to admit that crackers are an American staple, not an Asian one. 

“I am the founder of a product so distinctly American that the word ‘cracker’ has no direct Chinese translation. To this day, my dad still refers to our crackers as cookies!” Alex told The FruitGuys. 

So, why crackers? In advance of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month—when The FruitGuys will celebrate Fair & Square as our May Snack of the Month by adding its crackers to all of our Thoughtful Snack Box mixes—we sat down with Alex to learn his story. It’s an epic food quest that took him to elementary school gardens in Los Angeles, farms in Europe, and beyond.

Alex’s Story: Family, Farming, and Food as Medicine

Alex’s story starts with his family. His parents are Chinese, but they lived in Vietnam before immigrating to Los Angeles more than 45 years ago with their families. 

“Although my parents and grandparents were mostly born in Vietnam, I identify as Chinese American, more specifically, ethnically Hakka Chinese. As a result, I grew up eating a mishmash of Hakka, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and American cuisines,” Alex said. 

Eating with his extended family taught him that food could bring people together. Although he went to college to study banking, he quickly pivoted to working in school gardens and teaching cooking to elementary school kids. Then, he spent a summer working on farms in Italy, France, and Spain, getting to know the food system from the bottom up.

“I really started to realize the power of food and its ability to change the world,” Alex said. “And what I mean by that is that every person has to eat, regardless of class or creed.” 

From there, Alex went on to work at Whole Foods and Thrive Market, where he learned the ins and outs of the snack industry. At Thrive Market, he also discovered green banana flour—a savory, gluten-free, high-fiber flour alternative made from unripe bananas. He noticed the flour in smoothies, but its gut-healthy, prebiotic properties sparked his creativity. Today, it’s the number one ingredient in Fair & Square’s crackers. 

Creating Gluten-Free Snacks for the Office Break Room

Alex started Fair & Square after going down the gut health rabbit hole. As we recently heard from a neuroscience dietitian, the digestive system and the central nervous system are in constant communication via the “gut-brain axis.” A healthy gut can contribute to a healthy body and mind. 

“Our crackers are prebiotic because banana flour itself is prebiotic in nature,” Alex explained. “… And our formulations have very clean ingredients, so they’re less likely to be inflammatory. They don’t have any of the top 14 allergens, and that’s also kind to your gut, so our formulation is less likely to be triggering.” 

Fair & Square’s organic crackers come in a range of savory and sweet flavors, including Honey and Cinnamon Sugar (our personal favorites). Alex said he built the brand on four pillars: inclusiveness, scalability, sustainability, and gut health. He had a lot of food industry experience to lean on, but some of the challenges along the way surprised him. 

“A fun one was just understanding that crackers have to look a certain way, otherwise people think they look like dog snacks,” he said with a chuckle. “Sprinkled salt on top of crackers makes them look elevated.” 

Alex started selling his gluten-free snacks for the office break room to businesses in 2020, and the crackers quickly made their way to grocery store shelves.  

Leading the Way in the AAPI Snack Space

Fair & Square was—and still is—one of only a few AAPI-owned natural food brands on the market. 

“In elementary school, I was the only Asian kid on campus. I had no idea what it meant to be Asian from my peers and how that made us different. I felt the same way when I started my career in natural food over a decade ago,” Alex told The FruitGuys.

Asian people hold just 9 percent of the leadership positions in the natural product industry, which includes organic food, dietary supplements, and health and beauty products.

“I used to joke that when I first started in this industry, there were like five AAPI leaders in the whole space. So, a big part of it for me has been figuring out, ‘Okay, I might not be the biggest company in this space, but if I can be a thought leader here, why wouldn’t I help?’” Alex said. 

Alex’s door and email inbox are always open to other entrepreneurs, especially up-and-coming AAPI founders who want a mentor who looks like them and understands their challenges. 

“Anyone and everyone who reaches out to me, I’ll help,” he said. 

Support an AAPI-Owned Business: Try Fair & Square

One of the best ways to celebrate AAPI Heritage Month in your office is by supporting AAPI-owned businesses. That can be as simple as ordering a few cases of Fair & Square’s Honey or Cinnamon Sugar crackers from The FruitGuys while supplies last. Hand them out to your employees while they’re watching an AAPI-focused documentary or listening to a guest speaker share AAPI history. 

To support AAPI and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color) business owners year-round, consider ordering our Thoughtful Snack Box for recurring delivery. The mix of snacks inside changes weekly, but one of our top priorities is including snacks from brands owned by members of marginalized communities. You can read more about that commitment in “The Ultimate Office Snack Box Guide.”