Image courtesy of Martyna Domurad. Text by Renée Reardin.

When you hear of a popcorn company making fun flavours, such as salted-chocolate caramel, and peanut butter and jelly, you might assume they were dreamed up in a test kitchen. But Emily O’Brien, owner and founder of Comeback Snacks, came up with some of her popcorn flavours while incarcerated.

For O’Brien, a promising young entrepreneur running a successful media company, life took a sharp turn at age 26. While struggling with her own substance use issues, she was coerced by her then-boyfriend to smuggle cocaine on a flight, resulting in a conviction for drug trafficking. While serving her sentence at a Hamilton prison, O’Brien began getting creative with popcorn, one of the few snacks she had access to.

“I put random things on it, like honey or Kraft Dinner powder,” she recalls. This not only sparked a business idea, but also a plan to help many of the people she met while incarcerated — women who wanted and deserved a second chance. “We’re moms, artists, chefs, graphic designers, therapists,” she says. “I knew going back into society was going to be challenging because you’re going to be judged. I wanted to figure out a way to change that.”

She started by writing down recipes and ideas, then built her business while living at a halfway house. Today, Comeback Snacks’ sweet and savoury popcorn flavours are sold at retailers across Canada and the U.S. Operating from a collective kitchen in Hamilton, the business hires women with criminal records and endorses reintegration programs and prison reform.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it and I wanted to prove to other people that we could do it,” says O’Brien. “We’re capable and worthy of another chance—or a first chance. A lot of the people I met there didn’t even really get a first chance.”

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