Order Up! A Conversation with Regina Trillo, Founder of Nemi Snacks

Founder & Owner of Nemi Snacks, Regina answers our five rapid-fire questions and shares how cooking is a way to stay connected to her culture and pass down family traditions

Welcome to Order Up! Our One Potato Interview Series. We’re featuring Latino/a chefs, founders, and community members during Hispanic Heritage Month. We feature 4-5 interviews and personal essays every month. Paid Subscribers have access to the whole interview, including Regina’s mom’s salsa recipe and how she mindfully and intentionally selects her ingredients after facing her own health struggles. Thanks for reading, we only exist because of support from you, our One Potato community 🥔

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Regina Trillo is a startup founder and former human rights lawyer, the owner of Nemi Snacks -  crunchy sticks made from seeds and nopales (a.k.a. prickly pear cactus).

Originally from Mexico City and now based in Chicago, Regina felt unrepresented the moment she stepped foot in Chicago grocery stores. Regina found brands portraying Mexican cultura in a stereotypical way and mostly using artificial ingredients. Nemi Snacks was founded with a mission to elevate Mexican cultura in the U.S. through high-quality Mexican snacks in sombrero-free branding.

You know what WE loved? How absolutely delicious and kid-friendly these snacks are, and Regina’s connection to her family and passing down those flavors and traditions. In this interview series, we’re loving meeting new members of the community, discovering new ingredients and flavors and sharing them with you all - growing our community. Nemi Snacks are crunchy sticks made from seeds and nopales (a.k.a. prickly pear cactus) in Mexican-inspired flavors like Mexican Lime, Smoky Chipotle, Chile Turmeric and Churro. Nemi works directly with Mexican farmers, uses real chiles and spices and no artificial colors or ingredients.

We’re super conscious about the ingredients we cook with and use in our recipes. In this interview, Regina also shares how her own physical health journey and need for unprocessed ingredients fueled her journey to developing a healthy snack option. Read on for her mom’s salsa recipe!

Introduce Yourself: Regina Trillo, Nemi Snacks founder, launched in mid-2019

At One Potato, we talk a lot about how food and cooking is a way that traditions are passed down through generations. As a Mexican immigrant currently living in Chicago, do you have a favorite memory of cooking with your abuela, parents, or other family members?

Yes, so much revolves around cooking in Mexican households! In my family, the whole process of making food was a ritual. It started with planning menus since we were kids, and age didn’t matter: my siblings and I started cooking when we were 3 years old. We went to the mercado with my mom, learned about ingredients and how to select ripe avocados and fruit at the mercado. We loved cooking Mexican food, but we were exposed to other cultures through food and were always interested in trying other spices and flavors. At home, it was all about colors and flavors. We had people over every weekend and not helping at the kitchen wasn’t a possibility but we could choose what to make (always savory for me, I cannot bake). I remember I always liked making “cochinita pibil,” a Mexican dish from Yucatán made with slow-cooked pork in an achiote-based broth. Still one of my favorite Mexican meals! This was the meal I asked my mom to make every year for my birthday and the first dish I made for my now-husband.

Getting kids involved in the kitchen at a young age is something we talk about all the time at One Potato, so we love to hear this story about you and your siblings. We have heard over and over again from parents that when their kids help with dinner, they complain less at meal time, and express pride in what they’ve done - it’s so wonderful to see the joy in their faces!

For customers unfamiliar with Nemi Snacks and nopales, and especially families with kids who are picky eaters, how do you encourage them to give Nemi Snacks a try? We know that people rave about Nemi Snacks, and that kids love them! We love to encourage our community try new ingredients and expand their food horizons:

Nemi Snacks are the best way to try nopales! I love nopales, what they mean and what they represent. As you know, nopales are the most sustainable plant in Mexico, they thrive in hot weather, need little water to survive, they represent resilience because they can grow anywhere and have stood the test of time for more than 1,000 years. Nopales are a kind of cacti, so they’re slimy and a bit bitter. I want to share this amazing plant in a fun, crunchy and snackable way (no spikes or slime!). Nemi Snacks is a way to share this amazing ingredient in a way that’s more approachable and fun to eat. The snacks are made with different seeds like flaxseed, chia seeds, amaranth seeds, nopales and we only use real ingredients, spices and no sugar. Kids who love Nemi Snacks say that they love the crunch, the colors and call Nemi Snacks Churro “sugar sticks”, which is amazing because we don’t use sugar!

We think this is a great place to share that Regina has sent over an exclusive One Potato promo code - Grab some Nemi Snacks here:

Let’s talk about cooking in general - outside of making delicious snacks, do you like to cook? Do you have a favorite Mexican dish that you want to encourage the One Potato Community to make? (We’ll share the recipe with our readers!)

I LOVE to cook, it’s one of my favorite activities in life. My husband and I cook at home daily and it’s one of those experiences that is multidimensional because you have to use all your senses in the kitchen. At home, we know when meals are ready by its smell, the way it sounds, how it looks or how it feels when you touch it. It’s a meditative experience and an act of love because the intention behind cooking is always to make someone smile or bring joy to the person who eats our cooking. Something the One Potato Community can try making is the salsa my mom used to make that inspired our Nemi Snacks Smoky Chipotle flavor and can be used for so many different things:

Ingredients: