November 10, 2026
By Lora Kelley
The first time Hedvig Bourbon saw Norwegian Baked Crispbread on the shelves of the Coop was a “super proud, pinch-me moment,” she said. Looking at her own crackers in the aisle made Bourbon, a longtime Coop member and the founder of the Brooklyn-based snack brand, feel like “what I am crafting and doing is of this quality and standard.”
It took a few years after starting her business to see her products at the Coop—a distributor ended up helping to get her products on shelves just before the pandemic. But now, friends who are members tell her they unload boxes of her crackers during their stocking shifts, and her husband scans fellow members’ packages of Norwegian Baked while working shifts at checkout.
Bourbon joined the Coop about 20 years ago, when her family moved to Brooklyn from the West Village. “It was natural to become a member of the Food Coop,” she said.
And in the summer of 2014, Bourbon, then a stay-at-home mom interested in entrepreneurship, found herself enjoying her aunt’s crispbread, also called Knekkebrød, while visiting Norway. She was inspired to make crispbread in New York. “I said one day, ‘You know what? I think I’m going to do this,’ ” she recalled. “There’s nothing as delicious as this.”
As a spirited entrepreneur you get up again the next day and you say: I can do this.
Hedvig Bourbon
When she returned home to Brooklyn, she started making her aunt’s recipe and soon added in a new ingredient: extra virgin olive oil (she even inspired her aunt to start adding in olive oil). Bourbon looked into getting a home processing license, visited lots of stores to gather inspiration for packaging, and thought about a name. She considered calling the business “Nordic Crisp”—though she didn’t want to limit herself to just making crispbread. A friend suggested “Norwegian Baked.” That sounded great to her. In March 2016, Bourbon went to the courthouse in Brooklyn and “filed as Hedvig Bourbon doing business as Norwegian Baked,” she recalled.
In the early days, Bourbon visited local businesses in person to offer samples and ask if they might like to stock her products. She was so nervous that she turned red and stuttered, she recalled—but the pitch worked, and several Brooklyn stores were interested. “I just grew like that, like going from store to store and introducing myself,” she said. Running the business could be exhausting. “But as a spirited entrepreneur you get up again the next day and you say: I can do this,” Bourbon said.
Bourbon reached out early on to Alex Crosier, who was then running Granola Lab, which was also stocked at the Coop. “She was so generous with her story and resources,” Bourbon said of Crosier, who soon offered the rental of her kitchen facility a couple times a week and began helping out with Norwegian Baked. “That was a really, really fun start. There you are with your idea that you put to life, and you have your good friend who also comes and helps.” Before long, Bourbon hired more people and moved to a commercial kitchen space in the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
“It’s grown very organically with the help of friends being open-minded and encouraging and coming with suggestions,” Bourbon noted. “Today we are a team of five people who are baking and packing and everything, and we’ve scaled up,” she said. But, she added, “I am staying true to being handcrafted.”
She started out the business at home with one mixer and one oven. Lately, “we’re just more people, more bowls and more ovens, and we’re buying pallets of ingredients instead of bags of ingredients,” she said. “What’s really important is the intention and loving care that goes into the food.”
Now, her products are in stores and farmers markets across the country. She credits the local business community with helping to make her growth possible. “Being an entrepreneur and having a small business in Brooklyn, there are so many great resources,” she said, noting that she became a member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and is involved with the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation. Of the latter, she said, “You have your cohort of people that you can ask for advice, beyond the food, about running a small business.” In the Brooklyn Army Terminal, fellow businesses include those making spaceship parts, working on embroidery and producing chocolate. One neighbor there, MOMO Dressing, is also stocked at the Coop—and, Bourbon notes, it is “amazing with crispbread.” She enjoys being part of the scene: “Although Brooklyn is big, it’s pretty close-knit. People know each other, people say hi to each other, people help each other.”
“It’s not only me,” Bourbon reflected, more than a decade after getting the idea to start her crispbread company. Her husband is “super supportive” and has helped out in the kitchen and with local deliveries on his way to and from work. “As soon as the kids turned 14 they would come after school and on Saturdays to work, weighing the crispbread and packing,” she said, noting that all three of her children have also helped out with duties like outreach, social media and farmers market shifts. “There are so many people in my community that have been part of the story,” she said.
And so many Coop members who are its beneficiaries.
Lora Kelley is a journalist in Brooklyn.