Kristin O’Connor was on an overnight flight from Paris to Moscow when frustration-induced inspiration struck. She was on tour with an A-list actor (more on that later), working as his private chef. While she sat behind him on the plane, watching him eat his perfectly portioned, balanced, delicious meal, she lamented the fact that her snack options were chips, nuts, candy, or protein bars with unpronounceable ingredients. O’Connor craved something healthy, something real to feed her body. The seed that would become Super Dirt Foods had been planted.
O’Connor was not always a chef. In fact, she has no formal training in the kitchen. Earning her Masters Degree in Art Therapy, O’Connor began her career at the Renfrew Center in New York City. While she loved helping people, she yearned for something still more fulfilling. So, at 24, O’Connor packed her suitcase and headed to Florence for a month-long painting class. “It was in Italy I realized I was doing myself and the people I worked with a disservice,” she recalls. “I had no passion or purpose when I went to work in the morning.”
Something she was passionate about? Cooking. O’Connor, who moved to Ridgefield when she was 4, and whose parents still live in her childhood home, struggled with health issues in her early 20s. Her mom, Susan, guided her towards a more naturopathic approach. “I was eating gluten free, dairy free, soy free. And I’ve loved to cook since I could stand!” she tells us. “So I thought: Other people should know how to cook like this.” And voilà, she had found her why.
Without any connections in the television world, O’Connor pitched an idea to Food Network. “I was obsessed with Food Network,” she says, laughing. “So I hired a videographer and came up with an idea for a show, Cooking for Life. I mailed the tape to a production company, and a couple of months later, a producer called. He said they loved it and asked me to come meet with them,” she says. Together, they developed a demo, which O’Connor then formally pitched to Food Network.
Ultimately, Food Network passed on Cooking for Life because it was at odds with their various sponsors (a moment straight out of Lessons in Chemistry). “They loved the pitch, but said they couldn’t have a show with all of this healthy food made from scratch, then cut to a commercial for Hidden Valley,” O’Connor dishes. But it wasn’t all bad news—the production company liked O’Connor so much (it’s hard not to like her—she packs a lot of personality into her petite frame, and while she is warm, poised, and gracious, her presence is calmly commanding), they asked her to come on board, and she worked there as an Associate Producer and recipe developer for a couple of years in NYC. During this period, Susan became very ill, and O’Connor frequently visited Ridgefield to bring her mom to doctor’s appointments at the office of Dr. Peter D’Adamo.
Dr. D’Adamo is a renowned naturopathic physician whose practice happened to be located in Wilton at the time. “My mom was trying all different things to get better. And he literally saved her life,” O’Connor says. Dr. D’Adamo created the Blood Type Diet, and when he learned of O’Connor’s passion for healthy cooking, he suggested they work together. “I wrote four cookbooks in nine months and had a massive knee surgery in the middle of it all!” O’Connor says. At the launch party for the cookbooks, her career took another turn. “There was a trainer there, he worked with models and celebrities, and he suggested we collaborate. I didn’t have my sights set on being a private chef,” she tells us. “But I knew I could cook!”
Cook, indeed. But not just for anyone. Remember those A-listers? Prepare yourself. “Leo” (yes, O’Connor refers to him as Leo) DiCaprio was her first client. “I ended up cooking for him out of a suitcase for the first two weeks because I had broken up with my boyfriend and was traveling around staying at friends’ places!” she recalls.
It was during this Leo Era that O’Connor had an epiphany. “I knew I wanted to put something out into the world that everybody could have. First I thought it was pancake mix—gluten free, healthy. But I put it on the back burner, because I was so busy,” she tells us.
After cooking for DiCaprio on the set of The Wolf of Wall Street, then in Los Angeles for a year and a half, Bradley Cooper poached O’Connor for American Sniper. “He had to put on 30 pounds of muscle in 3 months for that movie. What I learned from Dr. D’Adamo is how food impacts our body and why,” O’Connor explains. “So I was able to apply that knowledge around what I was doing.”
The following year, O’Connor had another intensive knee surgery, staying with her parents in Ridgefield to recuperate. As during her other post-ops, she occupied her downtime with extended education courses online, including Sustainable Agriculture and Bean to Bar Chocolate Making. Then, in 2016, O’Connor dug deep into her experience, passion, and hobbies. That intangible product, which had begun percolating in her DiCaprio days, which had reached an ethereal apex on that flight from Paris to Moscow, was finally taking shape. “I asked my parents to put a folding table in their basement. I sat there with my leg up, did tons of research, ordered all different ingredients, and started developing BALLERS,” she tells us, smiling.
O’Connor’s biggest barrier, as with so many entrepreneurs, was capital. “I was talking to my brother every day, he’s a gastroenterologist, and he’d say, ‘What do you need, what’s preventing you from getting started? Let’s just do it!’” she recalls. So Dr. Ryan O’Connor and his wife, Iwona Lacka became the first investors in what would become Super Dirt Foods.
Sow Good, a clever play on words, was the company’s first name. “One of my huge focuses with the product is Equal Emphasis on Human and Environmental Health,” O’Connor explains. “If we’re creating more demand on a diversity of crops, that’s much better for soil health. And soil health is the number one thing that can help environmental health overall.” But when her friend pointed out that “sow” is another word for a female pig, that was out. (In addition to being gluten free and organic, the product is also vegan.)
The company’s second iteration was Seia and Co.—Seia is the Roman Goddess who protects the seed once sown. Alas, O’Connor decided Seia was too obscure. “I eventually landed on Super Dirt Foods. Food and health can be such a serious subject, so I thought—let’s have fun with it and be playful,” O’Connor says. “It’s a tasty product, but it has a lot of layers to it also, hence, Super Dirt!”
Super Dirt’s flagship product also has a playful name: BALLERS. Nixing the traditional bar, O’Connor opted for six one-inch balls in a resealable pouch. (Portionable and practical, farewell, crusted-over, half eaten bars!) There are six satisfying flavors to choose from, for now: Figgy Chocolate, Banana Chia, Mocha Maca, Berry Bender, Ginger Zing, and Lemon Greens. BALLERS protein base is composed of quinoa, flaxseed, pumpkin seed, and almonds.
“These are all different sources that feed your gut bacteria in various ways. And that diversity is super healthful for humans. Brain health, emotional health, all of it,” O’Connor explains. “When my brother saw the formula, he said several of the ingredients are prebiotics, which really doubled down our intention of creating a gut-healthy product, using real food ingredients for gut diversity and providing prebiotics.”
After years of recipe testing, a global pandemic, working with food scientists, finding a co-packer to make and package the product, more knee surgeries, a Kickstarter campaign, and still grinding away in the grueling role of private chef (“Jennifer Lawrence is my absolute favorite person. She is a fantastic human being!”), Super Dirt BALLERS launched in April, 2024. “It was a scary moment to be that vulnerable, but really cool,” O’Connor tells us. “There are always going to be people who say BALLERS aren’t for them. But we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response.”
So positive, in fact, that soon after their Kickstarter campaign, O’Connor received a phone call from another television producer—this time for Amazon Prime’s new show, Buy It Now. “It took four months of submitting videos and tons of in-depth interviewing to finally make it on,” O’Connor says. But good things come to those who wait, and she was in the pilot episode which premiered on Prime October 30th.
“This felt like a make or break moment, it meant everything to represent Super Dirt and BALLERS in a clear way to the audience, judges, and viewers. Hearing the response from Gwyneth Paltrow is still sinking in! It was surreal,” she beams.
After two decades of traveling the globe—and many career pivots—O’Connor recently moved back to Ridgefield and is expecting her first baby this month. “It’s comforting at this stage of my life to come back to the town I grew up in. Ridgefield is a wonderful place, we’re so lucky. The community is so nurturing,” she tells us.
O’Connor is also gracious in bestowing her gratitude on the many family members and friends who’ve helped make Super Dirt a reality. “I’m a one woman show here, but I have amazing support that has been so unwavering and so genuine. I have incredible people around me—my brother, parents, friends, my fiancé, Jesse. Without them, it would be really hard to keep going,” O’Connor says.
“Everyone has a busy life and there are definitely times where people can’t sit down and prepare an amazingly balanced, perfect snack for their kids—or themselves—but they want that,” she tells us.
Thanks to O’Connor, having that perfect snack is now just a click away.
There are definitely times where people can’t sit down and prepare an amazingly balanced, perfect snack for their kids—or themselves—but they want that.
SUPER DIRT BALLERS
BALLERS are available for purchase at superdirtfoods.com! Become a subscriber and choose your flavors and delivery frequency. Something happened and you need more (or less) BALLERS than usual? Adjust your frequency and varieties as needed. Not looking for a serious commitment? You can place a one-time order, with options to choose one flavor, a variety pack of all flavors, the “refreshing” flavors, or the “comforting” flavors.
BALLERS are also available for purchase on Amazon and in the Amazon Buy It Now store!