Over the past three decades, Kim Peacock and her husband Don Milroy built up a modest but respectable nut business based in Arlington, Texas. In March, 31 years of toil nearly unravelled in a matter of weeks.

The producer and retailer’s biggest customer was American Airlines’ Fort Worth hub. Every year GNS Foods supplied the carrier with millions of pounds’ worth of roasted pecans, pistachios, cashews and almonds. But when the Covid-19 pandemic grounded swaths of the airline industry, its wholesale business evaporated almost overnight.

“You think, how can I fight this? How can I survive? What can we do to make this work? Ms Peacock says. “And you just dust yourself off and get a second breath and go back at it. The last thing you want to do is let your life’s work go down the tubes.”