Tags
It's candy season, but Tessa Porter, founder of the Omaha-based Sprinkk, has candy on her mind every day, going back to her days as a student worker in the Food Processing Center in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
Porter, an ‘09 alumna from Albion, Nebraska, credits her time as a student worker in the Food Processing Center and her online MBA through the College of Business for preparing her to launch her own candy business out of Omaha.
"Sprinkk lets me combine doing what I love most — creating candies that are off the wall and different — with the creativity I thought was missing from the industry,” Porter said.
Since her time as a food science and technology student and through her post-undergraduate experiences working with nationwide food companies, Porter has been imagining, experimenting and tinkering with new ways to make candy.
The entrepreneur can trace the origins of her success to her time as a student worker in IANR’s Food Processing Center. There, Porter was encouraged to try out some of her wildest ideas.
"One semester, I came back from an internship with Hershey feeling super inspired and motivated,” she said. “Everyone in the center was so supportive of me. They actually allowed me to purchase some equipment and start a candy line from scratch in a small corner of the food processing center.”
That formative time helped Porter land a job with Hershey after graduation and launch her professional career. As Porter prepared to pivot and start her own business, earning an MBA from the College of Business’ online master’s program helped her understand how to turn her dreams into a successful business.
“The financial education came in handy, but the skills I’ve really leaned on throughout this journey have been the leadership skills," she said. "The program gave me the confidence to fail fast and move on if something wasn't working — that’s given us more momentum than trying to plan everything out perfectly.”
From launching a unique line of fruit snacks inspired by her grandmother to an upcoming Husker gummy candy, Sprinkk has carved out a tasty niche that began with a small development lab inside a church kitchen in her hometown.
The rewards have only gotten sweeter.
“Sprinkk is really the culmination of everything I learned throughout those years at Nebraska and across my career, and I feel like I’m still learning so much.," she said.
