A slip of the tongue and a change in careers has turned a culinary hobby into a tasty new brand.

Mattapoisett native Sarah Merrick, nee Bender, launched her own boutique snack company in December 2013. Red Fox Gourmet features Merrick’s handmade caramel popcorn, candied nuts, granola bars and trail mix. But the Tabor graduate didn’t start out on the foodie track.

Merrick studied sociology at Johns Hopkins University and then landed a job in Manhattan working in public relations for restaurants and food producers.

“I was young. I was in New York. It was fantastic,” said Merrick.

Through the job, she found herself drawn to small, family-owned businesses.

“I want to be the person on the other end of these phone calls,” she discovered. “I knew I needed to learn a little more about the food industry before I abandoned everything.”

While keeping her day job, Merrick attended the Institute of Culinary Education in the evenings. After graduating, she made friends at catering companies in the city to get experience. When she eventually moved to Philadelphia with her husband Chris, Merrick was ready to make the jump to a new career.

“I had been bit by the bug,” she said.

Merrick took a job at a café, working 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., which gave her the opportunity to experiment in her kitchen during the afternoons.

“I had all this time on my hands, so I started baking,” she said.

Perusing the snack aisle at the grocery store, she would go home and try to make better, “cleaner” versions.

“It became a hobby. We had so many snacks, we joked ‘we have to sell them to get rid of them,’” said Merrick.

As she perfected recipes, the idea for a gourmet snack business took shape – one with high quality ingredients that people would recognize on the label.

“When I went to the grocery store, I was finding myself going away from ingredients I couldn’t pronounce,” she said.

Once Merrick perfected her recipes (“There was a lot of burning and stickiness before I came across a formula that really worked,” she said.) she was ready to take it to the market. One thing she needed was a name, and her pet dog unknowingly provided some inspiration.

Merrick and her husband had adopted an English Springer Spaniel named Roxy who was always hungry.

“She loves nothing more to eat. She was constantly begging to be fed,” said Merrick.

The question in their household was always: “Have you fed Roxy?” One day Merrick responded “Yes, I red fox” instead of “Yes, I fed Rox.”

“It dawned on me one day that that’s a really good name for my business,” Merrick said.

In creating the graphics for the brand, she had a bow tie added to the red fox, in honor of her father John Bender, a pediatrician known for his neckwear.

So far, naming her company after a hungry pooch has served Merrick well.

The December launch resulted in many holiday orders from family and friends, and she has since gotten Red Fox Gourmet into a few shops, including Mattapoisett’s Town Wharf General Store.

Rosemary caramel popcorn and cayenne caramel popcorn are her biggest sellers, and Merrick hopes to expand to more fancy popcorn combinations soon.

All Merrick’s snacks continue to have the same simple, short list of ingredients she set out to use.

“I don’t claim to be a health food brand,” she said. But, “You should enjoy what you snack, and you shouldn’t be concerned that it’s something unnatural or unfamiliar.”

Visit Redfoxgourmet.com for more information.