Katy Tucker is a mom of three and the co-founder of Sunnie, where she’s on a mission to make nutritious, feel-good snacks that fit real family life. With a background in human resources and team development, she brings a thoughtful, people-first perspective to building a brand rooted in care, convenience, and joy.
Lisette Howard is the co-founder of Sunnie and a mom of three who is passionate about creating better food options for busy families. With a background in client success and brand growth, she brings a strategic and solutions-oriented mindset to Sunnie’s mission: helping families snack smarter without compromise.
Sunnie makes fresh, organic snacks for the in-between moments of your day. Founded in 2020 by moms and longtime friends Katy Tucker and Lisette Howard, Sunnie was born from a need for healthy, delicious, and convenient snacks for their kids and themselves. They partnered with pediatric nutritionist Jill Castle, MS, RDN, to create minimally processed options that nourish growing bodies and busy parents. Sunnie is helping families nationwide by meeting them at the intersection of nutrition and convenience. With two crave-worthy lines — dips with grain-free crackers and perfectly seasoned cracker packs — Sunnie brings real-food joy to lunchboxes, meetings, and everything in between. Follow along on Instagram @feel.sunnie
Sunnie was born out of a desire to make snacking enjoyable and accessible. What gap did you see in the market that led you to create the brand, and how did your experience as parents inform that vision?
When we started sending our own children to preschool and elementary school, we exhaustively searched grocery stores for fresh, convenient options to add to their lunchboxes. Despite our efforts, we found only legacy brands unchanged for decades. It struck us as ironic that fresh baby food was readily available for infants and even pets enjoyed fresh food options, yet school-aged children were still limited to the same processed meat and cheese trays.
This glaring gap in the market inspired a simple question: Why hadn’t anyone created a clean-ingredient snack pack that delivered what parents truly need – the perfect balance of nutrition and convenience? Sunnie was born from this realization, fueled by our firsthand experience as parents frustrated by the limited options for our children.
As co-founders and moms, how do you balance the demands of building a business with family life? Have your kids played any unexpected roles in the development or feedback process of Sunnie?
Balancing entrepreneurship with family life as mothers of three children each has been both challenging and rewarding. The journey has certainly been wild and at times, but it’s come with amazing and unexpected benefits.
Having our children involved throughout the product development process has proven invaluable. Their honest feedback on formulations and packaging has shaped Sunnie in ways we couldn’t have anticipated, giving us real-time insights from our core demographic.
Perhaps most meaningful has been the opportunity to model determination and passion for our children. Allowing them to witness firsthand what it looks like to pursue a vision and build something from the ground up has created powerful teaching moments. They’re not just consuming Sunnie products, they’re absorbing lessons about perseverance, problem-solving, and turning ideas into reality.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced launching a health-forward snack brand, and how did your personal values as parents help guide your decision-making along the way?
Creating formulations that delivered on nutrition was our absolute priority, but we recognized that even the healthiest products would fail if they didn’t appeal to our audience. Our guiding principle became developing delicious products that also happened to be healthy, not the other way around.
Also, we were determined not to add yet another product to grocery shelves that merely masqueraded as healthy through clever marketing while containing problematic ingredients. The market is saturated with options that claim to be nutritious but contain hidden sugars, seed oils, and artificial additives. Our commitment was to create genuine transparency and integrity in our formulations, products that truly deliver on their health promises rather than simply appearing virtuous on packaging.
Sunnie isn’t just a snack; it’s helping families nationwide bring healthier, more convenient options to the “table”. How are you approaching community building and educating families about your mission as the brand grows?
We love sharing about our products, but we recognize that the most trusted recommendations come from fellow parents who are “in the trenches” and have firsthand experience with what works for their families. This insight drove the creation of our mom ambassador program.
Our approach is simple yet powerful: we gift products monthly to a select group of mothers who genuinely believe in our brand and mission. These ambassadors authentically showcase how Sunnie products integrate into their daily routines and support their families’ needs. They share their genuine experiences through their social platforms, creating relatable, trustworthy connections with other parents seeking better options.
This community-driven strategy allows us to educate families about our mission through the voices they already trust, building a movement of informed parents who understand the difference between truly healthy options and marketing claims.
What advice would you give to other parent-founders who are looking to turn a personal frustration into a business opportunity?
Our advice is to embrace persistence above all else. The sheer volume of rejections and “not now” responses you’ll encounter is truly unfathomable, requiring resilience and thick skin to weather.
What separates successful ventures from abandoned ideas is the ability to listen carefully to feedback, thoughtfully integrate it into your product development, and return to the table with improvements. Each “no” contains valuable information that can refine your offering if you’re willing to hear it.
Remember that transforming a personal frustration into a viable business is a marathon, not a sprint.
Where do you see Sunnie in five years? On shelves, in schools, in lunchboxes across America? What’s the dream vision?
Our aspiration is for Sunnie to become ubiquitous in every environment where busy families are seeking convenient, nutritious options. We envision our products being readily available in schools, universities, amusement parks, hospitals, airports, and, of course, grocery stores nationwide.
We’re building Sunnie to be more than just another brand on the shelf—we want to create a trusted food solution that families can rely on wherever life takes them. By establishing this widespread presence, we aim to transform how families access healthy, convenient options during their busiest moments.
