Students design new look for popcorn enterprise

School
October 17, 2025

Students at Sutherland House School recently got to design a new look and visuals for Autism East Midlands' new social enterprise.

The workshop took place in the schools' art room, where years of our students' fantastic art was plastered all over the walls. Art Teacher Lesley brought pens in all kinds of shapes, colours and sizes. Students arrived ready to take on the challenge.

Ace Popcorn is a new social enterprise run by Autism East Midlands, where delicious popcorn will be made and packaged, creating flexible jobs for autistic people struggling to find work.

Those who wish to work for Ace Popcorn can commit to as little or as many hours as they feel able to.

Students were tasked to design:

An Ace Popcorn Logo
Packaging for the delicious popcorn
Any other visuals they wanted to create - smiley popcorn faces were a theme!

The Workshop

Hours flew by as the art room was joyfully decorated in popcorn packaging sketches and colourful popcorn illustrations. Here are a few of our favourite parts:

One student delved into the orange pens to create a wholly orange background, others opted for coloured letters and the words 'Ace Popcorn' sat within bubble words or even within images of popcorn itself.
Our Social Enterprise Lead joked that he had "learned far more than he expected" about popcorn since Ace Popcorn was first devised, sharing his knowledge on the difference between "butterfly popcorn" often found within salt and sweet flavours at the cinema and "mushroom popcorn" typically found within toffee flavours.
Another student began brainstorming ideas for different flavours of popcorn that Ace Popcorn could make - flavours that included spicy, seafood and based on tastes from different countries.
One teacher recalled how a student, who did not feel comfortable enough to participate in the workshop, asked questions about Ace Popcorn hiring autistic people, declaring that she could work for them someday!

We have always been dedicated and empathetic to the challenges that autistic people have to navigate in the world of work. From unclear interview practices, lack of flexible working and unspoken skills that are expected in crafting the perfect CV. One of our key strategic goals as an autism charity is to tackle unemployment rates for autistic people who are perfectly happy to work, but unable to find opportunities that are right for them.

Our employment team has dedicated work coaches that have assisted hundreds of autistic jobseekers in finding work; but we don't want to just source jobs, dependent on an ever-changing job market.

We want to create them too.

Hannah Foulstone-Dalsgaard, Marketing Manager for Autism East Midlands

With clear instructions on the manufacturing and packaging processes, we feel that our popcorn enterprise provides the perfect opportunity for autistic jobseekers to develop skills and contribute positively in the world of work, and we couldn't be more proud of the fact that our own autistic students are at the forefront of how we present this enterprise going forward.

Thank you to Sutherland House School, to the students and staff that supported on the day, including Lesley the Art Teacher and Dan from the Big Idea for helping us bring their vision to life.

Tristan Hemsley, Social Enterprise Lead

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Welcome from our head teacher

“We value everyone who has an input into the lives of our pupils and you, as parents, are a key participant. By working in partnership with you, we support your child in reaching his or her full potential.”

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