DEUX was founded by lifelong snack lover Sabeena Ladha. Growing up, Sabeena’s dad ran a gas station and Sabeena would spend weekends behind the counter snacking on junk food. Upon graduating from college, Sabeena moved on to work at PepsiCo, McKinsey & Company, and venture studio M13. After years of working for other brands, however, Sabeena began to feel the urge to create something of her own. During the first few months of the COVID pandemic, Sabeena was taking up to 10 different supplements a day and began to wonder why she couldn’t just get the same nutrition from her food. This led her to start brainstorming food categories in the grocery store that hadn’t yet been disrupted with better-for-you alternatives. Ultimately, Sabeena landed on cookie dough — dominated by legacy brands like Nestlé and Pillsbury — and set out to create a desirable healthy indulgence.

Sabeena started DEUX with a mixer in her own apartment kitchen. With the help of her plant-based and gluten-free baker friend, she started creating samples of chocolate chip cookie dough and worked with a naturopathic doctor to enhance it with functional ingredients. Sabeena then tested the concept on Instagram, creating limited batches of the cookie dough and “dropping” them to gauge demand. When the cookie dough started selling out in 30 minutes and Kristin Cavallari later posted about it, Sabeena knew she was onto something. From raising funding for a $100,000 first production run to making $1 million in year one to airing on Shark Tank, Sabeena and the DEUX team have turned the cookie dough industry on its head with their good-for-you, functional, and cult-favorite cookie dough.