This week on the Hemp Show, Claire Crunk returns. She is the founder of Trace Femcare, the worlds first hemp fiber tampon.
Her first appearance on the podcast was in 2023. Her company was just a few weeks away from their initial product launch. All they were waiting for was final approval from the FDA. She assumed then that things would be easier than they ultimately turned out to be.
On this episode we find out what happened with the FDA and how the agency's request for an additional study was a major setback for Trace.
What the FDA wanted from Trace was an exhaustive extraction study and mass spectrometry analysis, which would take 12 months and cost 150 thousand dollars.
"So that's 12 additional months of operating expenses of runway added to the company as well. So it's not just a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. It becomes, you know, four hundred thousand dollars," Crunk said.
Ultimately, the company could not overcome the burden and Trace was forced to sell its assets.
The story of Trace and Claire's battle with FDA is one of the story lines in the documentary film One Plant, which has finished production and is seeking a distribution channel now.
But when the film ends, the Trace story remains unresolved.
"But the story never actually ends. It just melts and changes," said Crunk.
"There's just been a lot of reckoning in my life and I've changed in different ways and, you know, understand now what it means to have grace through failure and to figure out what to take forward from that."
There was great interest in the company's assets among in the feminine hygiene space.
"There were these big entities that are on shelf at every retailer that you could ever go to who were very interested in picking us up and did some due diligence on it," Crunk said.
This was at the time when the new Trump administration was imposing tariffs all around the world.
"There was a lot of uncertainty in the absorbent hygiene world because it is a globalized supply chain."
A Blessing in Disguise
Because of how the sale of the assets was structured, Crunk had no say in who bought the company.
She was pleasantly surprised when 1937 International showed interest and ultimately made the acquisition.
"1937 International is a fairly new US entity that is working very diligently in a joint venture with groups in Pakistan to set up hemp fiber ecosystems in Pakistan. And you know, Pakistan is globally renowned for textile production, fiber knowledge, fiber production. Fiber agronomy," she said.
Ryan Zaczynski, co-founder of 1937 International, was a guest on the Hemp Show this past March, and his fellow co-founder Nick Furlong was featured on our episode from the Industrial Hemp International conference.
Crunk said that part of 1937 International's vision "is to have hemp fiber win across categories and across the world."
This development was more than Crunk could hope for.
"It turned it from a grief process and what felt like something being taken away from me to I am so excited to take Trace from my hands and put it in somebody else's hands because of these people," she said.
"I feel really lucky and also I feel really lucky that they want me to be along for the ride. So, you know, there's a lot of things to be thankful for."
All that and more.
Learn More
Trace Femcare
traceyourtampon.com
1937 International
linkedin.com/company/1937-international-corp
One Plant (documentary)
oneplant.film
Heavy Metals in Tampons Study (Columbia / UC Berkeley)
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38964170
News Nuggets
Panda Biotech and Culturewell Partner to Bring US Hemp Fibre to India's Textile Industry
hempgazette.com/news/panda-biotech-culturewell-us-hemp-fibre-india-textiles
New Low-THC Hemp Fiber Cultivar Flourishes in NYS Climate
news.cornell.edu/stories/2026/05/new-low-thc-hemp-fiber-cultivar-flourishes-nys-climate
Nepal Hemp Builder's Largest Project Yet Marks a Highly Personal 10-Year Milestone
hemptoday.net/nepal-hemp-builders-largest-project-yet-marks-a-highly-personal-10-year-milestone
Sponsors
IND Hemp
indhemp.com
Forever Green / KP4 Hemp Cutter
hempcutter.com
In this episode of the Lancaster Farming Industrial Hemp Podcast, host Eric Hurlock welcomes back Claire Crunk, founder of Trace Femcare, the company behind the world's first hemp fiber tampon. Claire first appeared on the show in 2023, just weeks before launch. In the years since, Trace has weathered a grueling FDA battle, a funding crisis, and ultimately a distressed sale — a story captured in the new documentary film One Plant, in which both Claire and Eric appear. This conversation picks up where the film leaves off, tracing what happened after the cameras stopped rolling.
Claire walks through the regulatory fight at the heart of Trace's story: how the FDA initially flagged cannabinoids as its only concern, then reversed course months later and demanded an exhaustive chemical extraction study and mass spectrometry analysis — a $150,000, year-long process on par with the testing required for implants and high-risk medical devices. She describes the double standard she felt when the FDA later ran its own lower-standard tampon study following a Columbia and UC Berkeley report that found heavy metals in dozens of tampon brands already on the market. The result, Claire notes, is that Trace became "the most tested tampon in history" — a product more rigorously vetted than the tampons people have used for generations.
The conversation also explores the surprising shape of Trace's earliest customer base, the role of consumer consent and transparency in period care, and Claire's personal journey through business failure, healing, and reinvention. She explains how Trace's assets were acquired by 1937 International, a US company building hemp fiber supply chains in Pakistan in partnership with Dr. Zafar Riaz, and how Trace's original vision of regionalized, traceable "farm to flow" supply chains can scale to a global stage. Listeners who heard the earlier episode with 1937 International's Ryan Zaczynski will recognize the connection.
Looking ahead, Claire describes a roadmap that extends far beyond tampons — pads, wellness products, wound care, bandages, kinesiology tape, pet products, and even hemp fiber geotextiles for construction sites. The episode also features three news nuggets covering Panda Biotech's hemp fiber partnership in India, Cornell AgriTech's new low-THC fiber cultivar Ursa Alta, and Shah Hemp Inno-Ventures' large-scale hempcrete care home project in Meerut, India. It's a wide-ranging look at hemp fiber's expanding role across textiles, medicine, construction, and sustainable manufacturing — and Claire's remarkable story of grace through failure and reinvention.
