Dallas entrepreneur Julie Fox, and her husband Mike, are pretty popular among the golfers at the Ryder Cup golf tournament in Chaska, Minn. And it’s not because they’re such big golf fans, which they are, but rather the carload of Julie’s cinnamon-vanilla bean and cacao-coconut treats they toted up there for the players, this week.

It all began when Julie Fox’s husband, Mike, was diagnosed with Barrett’s Esophagus, a pre-cancerous condition. She decided to do everything possible to keep the disease from advancing. Her research led her to change the couple’s diet.

“We just started looking into what causes it and what you can do on a daily basis to make sure it doesn’t progress into something worse,” Julie told D Magazine. “We found that diet change is a big part of it. So we gave up grains, dairy, processed foods, refined sugars, and went Paleo.”  

They searched for clean snacks and realized there aren’t many options for people who are eating like a “caveman.” That’s when Julie took matters into her own hands and started making homemade nut butters and grain-free granola. Mike liked the snacks so much he encouraged her to sell them.

Before long, she was packaging them up for people to try. Now, less than a year later, Julie has a commercial kitchen in Dallas, where she makes Julie’s Real products, and she’s selling them online and in some stores locally.

Oh, and by the way, golfer Jordan Spieth’s go-to granola is Julie’s Real, according to his trainer Damon Goddard of AMPD Golf Fitness in Dallas on Under Armour’s UA Record Blog. Want to know more? Go here. 

Delivering what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth innovation, every day. Get the Dallas Innovates e-newsletter.