Did you know Splenda Zero Calorie Sweeteners are made here in Indiana? Well Jasmine Klopstad, a Carmel High School senior, does because she interned with the Splenda marketing team this semester working at the Heartland Food Products Group corporate headquarters in Carmel. The partnership with Heartland FPG, owner of the Splenda brand, is one of the current opportunities available through our Work-Based Learning (WBL) program at Carmel High School. 

Jasmine's marketing internship is a part of her capstone course and will complete her requirements for her graduation career pathway. 

This internship has helped me extend my business knowledge into a real-life setting and has led me to acknowledge the interests I have in market research. I have learned various protocols and procedures conducted in the office setting. For example, using Excel, booking meeting rooms, collaborating with coworkers learning essential business, and research skills. ~ Jasmine Klopstad, CHS Senior

Justin Rife, Heartland Food Group Digital Communications Manager, said Jasmine was a great fit for Splenda and that the Carmel High School WBL program is a recipe for success! Through market research on food trends and consumer tastes, Jasmine identified the opportunity to focus on vegan recipes, especially for breakfast. She was integral in the development of three new vegan recipes for Splenda, including a vegan donut. 

Jasmine gave us added and dedicated capacity to go deeper into researching and understanding emerging recipe trends in the US. She leveraged our food trend service, Tastewise, and social and web resources to help understand what trends are most relevant for sweeteners. Then she gathered additional recipe insights from our advertising and diabetes partners to support her recommendations. Her biggest insight was identifying vegan as a gap in our Splenda recipes. Currently, she is coordinating with our chef and photographer to develop three vegan recipes to add to Splenda.com.

Another big insight she identified was the importance of sweet within breakfast recipes. From this, we’ve already seen tremendous results in our recipe advertising. It was, in part, her insights into the popularity of sweet breakfast foods that lead us to lean into advertising two sweet breakfast casseroles earlier this year. We advertised our Blueberry Croissant Breakfast Casserole and Chocolate Banana Bread Baked Oatmeal recipes. The results were amazing! The Blueberry Breakfast Casserole outperformed the ad network benchmark by over 500%. It nearly matched our all-time best-performing recipe, 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies. ~ Justin Rife, Heartland Food Group