After a decade in corporate accounting, one date night and a shot of scotch mixed into homemade popcorn changed Charlene Li’s career trajectory.
In 2019, with no formal culinary background, Li and her husband co-founded gourmet popcorn brand EATABLE. Cooking and trying new recipes were something they loved doing together; they’d make popcorn flavours at home and bring them to friends’ parties, often as a last-minute host gift.
“No, we didn’t buy it, we made it.”
Charlene Li
EATABLE CEO
“We’d never find anything from the grocery store that we felt good about bringing to parties,” said Li. “Everything was laced with flavours or preservatives. So we would keep going back to this popcorn that we’d make at home and bring it to parties. Friends would go nuts over it and ask us where we bought it, and we’d be like, ‘No, we didn’t buy it, we made it.’”
For years, it was just a party trick. That changed when the couple moved to Boston for work and decided to join a food incubator. EATABLE ended up winning the pitch competition, giving them the confidence to build a consumer packaged goods (CPG) business.
Within a year, the two were back in Toronto, renting out kitchen time, working with Paris-trained pastry chefs, and tweaking recipes. Soon after, EATABLE launched on Shopify with three flavours: Pop the Champagne, Whisky on the Pops, and Poppin’ Merlot PB&J. The first two are still top performers to this day.
Today, EATABLE popcorn is available online and in 1,600 retailers across Canada and the U.S. The brand has also partnered with Netflix, Disney, and the Oscars.
Helping talent ‘pop’
Despite EATABLE’s rapid growth, Li says the company still does a lot of its own manufacturing and continues to operate with a lean mindset, especially when it comes to hiring.
“In the early days, we had to find ways to do a lot with very few resources, and hiring students gave us a way to tap into talent in a way that would meet our ambition without having to invest tons of financial resources,” said Li.
At least that’s how it started. Like many early-stage companies, founders often hire students as inexpensive labour, with little intention of long-term professional development. But Li quickly realized students offered more than just extra hands. Over time, she intentionally built a student-to-full-time hiring pipeline.
“I discovered that having students on our team gave us a pace of thinking and this innately comfortable tech savviness that allowed us to move faster,” said Li. “So, not only did we save money on hiring, but we had really good experiences with certain interns that we were able to bring in through the ICTC program, and we kept them on our team long after the grant expired.”
The Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) is a national non-profit that provides research, advice, and programs to strengthen digital skills. One of its initiatives is the Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Digital program for post-secondary students. Participating employers can apply for grants to subsidize up to 50 percent of a student’s salary, or up to 70 percent for underrepresented students.
Li has participated in the program for two years and, of the four students she’s hired through ICTC, has offered paid positions to two.
“The ICTC program gave us the ability to hire students at a certain level where they equip us with more ideas, more brainpower, and more execution power,” said Li. “At the same time, I get to mentor them directly, give them exposure to founders, and help them build meaningful work experience.”
“Treat students like future leaders, not just temporary help.”
The WIL Digital program takes place over three terms a year: Winter, Spring/Summer, and Fall. Since 2017, it has facilitated over 23,000 work placements. More than 4,000 employers across Canada have participated, and over 70 percent of placed students identify as belonging to underrepresented groups.
At EATABLE, all WIL students start in a social media or customer service role, which Li said is the best way to help them understand both the product and the customer. From there, Li asks high-performing students what they want to do next.
“I tell students all the time, this internship is what you make of it. And if there’s something you want to do, we’ll find a way for you to do that with us,” she said. “I get to bring students in their zone of genius, and when they come in with a willingness to learn, I feel like what it really does for our company is it helps us punch above our weight.”
For one student, that meant working on a Netflix partnership.
“When he first joined the team, he was working in a customer service role and helped with shipping fulfillment,” said Li. “He very quickly demonstrated a proficiency in social media that really impressed me, so I broadened his scope of work and later moved him into a support role to help me manage licensing projects.”
The student went on to coordinate client meetings, support recipe development, and contribute to packaging design for a Netflix promotion. That year, EATABLE became the official popcorn for Netflix’s gifting campaign, sending red velvet–flavoured popcorn to production crews.
“Treat students like future leaders, not just temporary help,” said Li. “When you give them real problems to solve and real accountability, that’s your way of investing in them as people. I’ve found that when you invest in them, they invest back into your business and give back to you tenfold.”
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ICTC’s Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) Digital program provides employers with wage subsidies of up to 50 percent of a student’s salary up to $5,000, or 70 percent up to $7,000 for underrepresented students.
Learn more and apply here for the January-March 2026 term.
Feature image courtesy EATABLE.