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 up-and-coming confectionists 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 at a grand opening event on June 28. Sprinkk also launched operations at a new flexible contract manufacturing facility in Porter’s hometown of Albion, Nebraska.

Porter and her team hope to play a role in reshaping how startup candy makers develop and test their new product ideas with the opening of both facilities.

Lowering barriers for small scale candy makers

Porter, president at Sprinkk, describes herself as a “candy scientist by trade.” She has extensive experience in product development, formulation, process design, and scaling formulas for manufacturing at candy companies like Hershey’s and Ferrara.

Silicon Prairie News wrote about Porter’s return to Nebraska and why she started Sprinkk in 2023. Read the story here.

Sprinkk’s new facilities represent Porter’s commitment to lowering production hurdles and encouraging innovation. “Instead of requiring that our clients make 20,000 pounds of product, we require that they make 50 pounds of product, and so it lowers the hurdles for them,” she explained.

This flexibility allows more creative experimentation without the risk of large-scale waste.

“The main driver is that it lowers those risks…that you’re making 20,000 pounds of something and it’s a test, and it goes wrong. That is 20,000 pounds of waste,” Porter said.

Helping turn ideas into reality

Porter started Sprinkk to bridge the gap between lab development and manufacturing in the candy industry. Her passion lies in creating innovative candy products and helping clients bring their ideas to fruition.

Sprinkk’s new R&D lab in Omaha and the 2,500-square-foot manufacturing facility in Albion mark a significant expansion for the company.

The Omaha lab will serve as a hub for research and development, equipped with state-of-the-art technology for efficient and new methods of candy production. Porter and her boyfriend renovated the lab in seven months.

“One thing that’s nice with this space that we built out here is having…more room to bring clients in. So it’s not always us developing it, sending it back,” Porter said. “But we can bring them in and co-develop with them.”

Albion, the home of the new Sprinkk candy factory, holds special significance for Porter as her hometown. Sprinkk will create recipes in the R&D lab and manufacture them in Albion’s factory.

“We take the ideas that clients have and make them come to life,” Porter said. 

Sprinkk Quality Manager Karen Talley added that the R&D lab is where “we work on formulations, test out different recipes, and ensure every candy that we’re working on is exactly correct.”

Katie Teh, a candy scientist at Sprinkk, pointed out the collaborative and innovative environment fostered by the new facility. “I take the customers’ ideas, I make test batches…for them to taste. And I’ll run any kind of analytical data that we need to make sure that it’s heading towards the right direction,” she said.

Teh emphasized the importance of perseverance in innovation, mentioning Porter— “Tessa really lives by: if there’s 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 production, aiming to foster education opportunities and more women in STEM, while advocating for careers in the trades and manufacturing—especially in Nebraska.

“Candy is fun. Candy brings joy,” Porter said.

This makes it a great starting point to create engaging educational opportunities related to the STEM fields. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Math.

“I’ve gone into the classroom, and we’ll do a demonstration where they get to make their own gummy. We talk about ideas. We talk about how to create something that doesn’t exist,” Porter said. “I love doing that at a really young age and then more at a collegiate level.”

As an all-women team at Sprinkk, Porter has seen an increasing trend in women-run businesses approaching Sprinkk for product development.

“We don’t want to be just a manufacturer, but we want to be the best type of manufacturer and someone that is just genuinely concerned about doing the right thing and making really great products,” Porter said.