MEET KELLY

Kelly Schexnaildre (they/them) is the founder of Merfs Condiments and your new favorite Sauce Sommelier. Born and raised in South Louisiana—a cultural mecca where African, Spanish, and French cuisines collide in the most delicious ways—Kelly has been obsessed with bold flavors since they cooked their first full meal at age seven.

After 12 years in restaurants working every position from dishwasher to line cook, Kelly launched Merfs Condiments in Denver in 2014 at age 26 with a simple mission: hot sauce should be more than thin, vinegary nonsense. They've been working closely with restaurants through Merfs ever since. What started as a solution to their own problem grew into a beloved brand serving over 700 restaurants across the United States.

But here's the thing about the food industry—it's broken. After watching distributors, gatekeepers, and impossible margins crush small businesses (including their own during COVID), Kelly realized there was a better way to share their expertise. Instead of battling a system designed to bankrupt creative food makers, they're now empowering restaurants directly through custom sauce development, recipe consulting, and CPG guidance.

Kelly brings real-world experience that most consultants simply can't match—they built Merfs from absolute scratch. That means everything from recipe testing with restaurant coworkers to cold-calling hundreds of restaurants, from figuring out licensing and commissary kitchens to choosing bottles and caps, from handling all the accounting and administrative tasks to personally delivering cases to customers. They started with two flavors and grew it into a business serving 700+ restaurants through pure hustle and figuring it out as they went.

These days, you'll find Kelly back home in New Orleans, where they spend their time writing, reading, playing softball, and drinking way too much coffee. They're a Scrabble master, crossword puzzle enthusiast, and can often be spotted taking long walks through the city that shaped their palate. Kelly is passionate about physical health and wellness, follows a Paleo lifestyle, and loves lifting weights, running, and yoga.

Whether they're developing your next signature sauce or discovering the best spicy food spots around New Orleans, Kelly brings the same philosophy to everything: if it's not bold, flavorful, and worth getting excited about, why bother?

Meet Merf!

This is Murphy - the inspiration behind the company name.

Murphy was owned by Kelly's parents. After growing up with basset hounds, it seemed only natural to name the company after the most current basset family member. He was silly, stinky, and had an incredibly spicy personality.

A few things you should know:

  • He was born in Nebraska.
  • He has a younger brother (a yellow lab) named Gus.
  • His legs were seven inches long.
  • His ears were nine inches long.
  • He passed in September 2024 and his birthday was January 3.