Dagny Lott, SEAS ’24, Swarthmore, PA
This summer I participated in a 13-week internship at NEPRI, an early-stage CPG (Consumer Product Goods) company. I’ve worked for a few start-ups before with as few as 10 or as many as 500 employees, but I never had the chance to help build a company from the ground up. From product development, trademarking, patenting, licenses, marketing/sales, nutrition science, distribution channels, and sourcing ingredients, the projects I worked on this summer were varied and taught me about running a profitable company.
Born out of the Food Innovation Lab @ The Wharton School of Business, NEPRI is launching a new dry pasta product that boasts 2X more protein, 3X more fiber, 2X more iron, and 25% fewer carbs than standard pasta. I dropped off samples of our product at over 40 stores in the Philadelphia & NYC area and we now have a handful of stores that want to sell our pasta, including a local Whole Foods.
Some highlights of my summer experience include our first factory production with our co-packer in May, hosting a taste testing demo for the UPenn Board of Trustees in June, getting the first yes from a store, finalizing our label design in July, opening pre-orders on our website, and completing a product test in two stores in August. Excited to see the company grow and what lies ahead! Check us out on our website (nepripasta.com) or on Instagram (@nepri_pasta).
This article was written for the Career Services Funding Blog. It is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer.
