In June, Tessa Porter, candy scientist and founder of candy development company Sprinkk, opened not one but two state-of-the-art facilities in Nebraska to help budding confectioners bring their sweet treats to market.
The Sprinkk team showed off the company’s new 3,700-square-foot R&D lab in southwest Omaha during a grand opening event June 28. Sprinkk also began operations at a new flexible contract manufacturing facility in Porter’s hometown of Albion, Nebraska.
With these new facilities, Porter and her team hope to play a role in reinventing the way emerging candy makers develop and test new product ideas.
Lowering the barriers for small candy makers
Porter, Sprinkk’s president, describes herself as a “candy scientist by trade.” She has extensive experience in product development, formulation, process design and scaling formulations for manufacturing, working for candy companies such as Hershey’s and Ferrara.
Silicon Prairie News wrote about Porter’s return to Nebraska and why she’s launching Sprinkk in 2023. Read the article here.
Sprink’s new facility represents Porter’s commitment to lowering production barriers and encouraging innovation: “Instead of asking a customer to make a 20,000-pound product, we ask them to make a 50-pound product, so we lower the barrier for them,” she explained.
This flexibility allows for more creative experimentation without the risk of massive waste.
“The main motivation is to mitigate the risk of manufacturing something that costs £20,000, testing it and it failing – that’s a waste of £20,000,” Mr Porter said.
Helping you turn your ideas into reality
Porter founded Sprinkk to bridge the gap between lab development and manufacturing in the candy industry. Her passion is creating innovative candy products and helping her clients bring their ideas to life.
Sprinkk’s new R&D lab in Omaha and 2,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Albion represent major expansions for the company.
The Omaha lab will be a research and development hub with cutting-edge technology for efficient new ways to make the candy, and Porter and her husband spent seven months renovating the lab.
“The nice thing about the space we’ve created here is we have more room to bring in customers, so it’s not always us developing it and sending it back,” Porter said, “but we can bring in customers and develop it together.”
Albion, home to the new Sprinkle candy factory, holds special meaning to Porter as it is his hometown: Sprinkle creates its recipes in its research and development lab and produces them in its Albion factory.
“We take our clients’ ideas and make them a reality,” Porter said.
Sprinkk’s quality control manager Karen Talley added that the R&D lab is “where we work on our formulations, test different recipes and make sure every candy we work on is accurate.”
Sprinkle candy scientist Katie Teh pointed to the collaborative, innovative environment fostered by the new facility: “I take my clients’ ideas, create prototypes, have them taste test them, and then run any kind of analytical data we need to see if we’re heading in the right direction,” she said.
Teh emphasized the importance of perseverance in innovation, saying of Porter, “Tessa really believes that, ‘if you have enough time and money and it’s within the laws of physics, anything is possible.'”
Making STEM education fun
Porter’s vision extends beyond candy making, as she aims to promote educational opportunities and develop women in STEM fields while promoting trades and manufacturing careers, particularly in Nebraska.
“Candy is fun. Candy brings joy,” Porter said.
This is a great starting point for creating engaging educational opportunities related to STEM fields, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
“I go into classrooms and I demonstrate to students how to make their own gummy bears. We discuss ideas. We discuss how to make something that doesn’t exist,” Porter said. “I really loved doing that at a young age and even more so at the college level.”
Because Sprinkk’s team is all female, Porter has noticed an increasing trend of women-owned businesses approaching Sprinkk for product development.
“We don’t just want to be a manufacturer, we want to be the best manufacturer and a company that genuinely cares about doing the right thing and making a really great product,” Porter said.
