Ontario entrepreneur shares story of resilience building her popcorn business from behind bars

Ontario entrepreneur Emily O’Brien is sharing her story with Ottawa business leaders of how she started a business in prison. CTV’s Camille Wilson reports.

Entrepreneur Emily O’Brien shared her story of resilience and second chances, speaking before Invest Ottawa about founding her successful snack business in the unlikeliest of places.

O’Brien shared the story of her starting a popcorn business, Comeback Snacks, which began in federal prison in 2015.

“I’m proud to be here in Ottawa today talking about building a business with conviction for International Women’s Month,” O’Brien said Monday.

“This work has brought me all over Canada.”

What O’Brien thought was just a vacation to St. Lucia with a friend, turned into a drug operation three days later.

“I was arrested at Pearson International Airport. Unfortunately, got mixed up in an illegal drug smuggling scheme. Not the best time of my life,” said O’Brien.

“I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to try to play gangster. I wasn’t a gangster. I didn’t know that world. I just wanted to go home.”

O’Brien pled guilty but says she knew prison was going to be the beginning, not the end.

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While spending four years in prison, she says she met other people who made mistakes but wanted redemption and a second chance.

“One thing that we always talked about was job security and even just employment and how once you’ve done your time, you’re still condemned from society,” said O’Brien.

O’Brien says she had to work on making a comeback and knew it was going to be hard for her to find a job.

From there, her business Comeback Snacks was birthed in 2018. With popcorn being a popular prison snack, O’Brien and some inmates started adding their own twist.

“You became kind of like a family in there just to get us through this tough time. We would also make popcorn and we put different recipes and different spices,” said O’Brien.

In 2019, she officially started her business after being released from prison and is now selling Comeback Snacks in more than 1,200 stores across Canada, including Farmboy, Longo’s, Metro, Indigo, hotels and arenas.

She recently signed a deal in the United States, launching in TJ Maxx and HomeSense.

With job security being difficult for those behind bars, O’Brien is using her company to give back to former inmates.

“We’ve hired over 20 people that have been incarcerated at some time in their life because that was one thing I want to fight for. I was incarcerated. I knew that I was hopefully worthy of redemption,” said O’Brien.

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Growing up in Hamilton, O’Brien was invited to be the keynote speaker at Invest Ottawa for an International Women’s Month celebration, focused on small businesses.

“Emily’s story is phenomenal. Just the whole theme of International Women’s Month is give to gain. One thing that we all know, and especially as women, we need that support, we need to give to each other in order to help us accelerate, grow and thrive,” said Paula Hopkins, director of the entrepreneurship team at Invest Ottawa.

O’Brien says she couldn’t have done it without the people who have supported her along the way, including partners and mentors.

“I’m not behind any bars. I was, but being able to say this was me, I was there, taking ownership of that. That’s true freedom,” said O’Brien.

“No matter what you go through, no matter what failures you have or what mistakes you make, you can come back from them.”