Caroline Bryant
Features Editor
It’s February 2021. Then Florida Southern College senior Claire Henry celebrates Chinese New Year with her friends and family. After a fun-filled holiday, she falls asleep and dreams about starting Purple Panda Creamery, an ice cream business selling Asian-inspired flavors.
She wakes up in love with the idea.
Flash forward to a few weeks later. Catapult Lakeland President Christin Strawbridge presents to her class taught by Professor Annette Pitt. Strawbridge informs students about her work at the company. Inspired by Strawbridge’s presentation, Henry says Purple Panda Creamery is “meant to be.”
“I’m a firm believer in dreams and how they have meaning, or they draw in inspirations, so I was like you know what? I’m going to follow my dream,” Henry said.
With the help of Dr. Justin Heacock, the Director of the Center of Free Enterprise & Entrepreneurship at FSC, Henry received her business license and began at Catapult.
Since graduating in 2021 with her bachelor’s degree in business administration, Henry keeps Purple Panda Creamery as her “side hustle” while she works full-time as a Travel Procurement Analyst for Publix and completes her master’s degree.
But when she’s off the corporate clock, she hauls her two-quart ice cream maker back and forth from her home to Catapult. She plays with flavors, loving how “easy [it is] to create stuff with ice cream” and comes up with the “funkiest flavors.”
Henry says if someone asks, she’ll experiment with any flavors. However, there are 15 regular flavors on the menu, including everything from Ube (a purple yam) to Fortune Cookie. There are popsicle flavors as well.
She often wheels her purple ice cream cart, purchased with Catapult’s Launch Micro Grant of $2,500 she won last October, to the downtown farmer’s market. Her products were also sold at events at FSC, like the Governor’s Cup and the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, and are about to debut at the Taste of Florida.
Unlike most startup competitions, Henry said competing for the micro-grant was “actually fun.”
“It [was] a lot better than a lot of other competitions that I’ve done because these investors were really truly looking to invest,” Henry said. “It was more of a community thing. It was a great way to tell the community like what you’re doing, how you’re going to be helping out Lakeland, or like your purpose. [The investors] were rooting for you, so it didn’t feel like a competition. It just felt like people coming together and just supporting you with any way that they could.”
Without her win, she wouldn’t have gained traction. Before purchasing her ice cream cart, Henry explained that customers at the farmers market would be confused about what she was selling. Once she got her cart, the purple box on wheels not only attracted more customers but carried more ice cream.
How the name of Purple Panda Creamery came to be is just as preeminent as her cart.
When Henry was 14 years old, she and her friend Madison created a pillow business to raise money for children with Cystic Fibrosis. Their philanthropic work was inspired by MacKenzie, Madison’s sister, who had passed away from the disease in 2014 after their start.
“Her sister had a life-threatening disease called Cystic Fibrosis and she unfortunately passed away,” Henry said. “But at 14, we had this idea like ‘Oh my gosh, why don’t we try to do a non-profit where we raise money for children with Cystic Fibrosis.’ That’s where the ideas went off. My friend Madison loved the color purple, and MacKenzie, her sister, loved panda bears. So, I was just like that’s perfect and it just told their story.”
As MacKenzie continues to be her “inspiration through and through,” she willed down the name.
She also admired how the name spoke to her Asian heritage and how it represented the love she felt during Chinese New Year before she had her life-changing dream.
While she hopes to expand her brand to retailers and wholesalers – especially her current employer – Henry is content with the size of her company. After participating in numerous markets back-to-back, she has cut down her hours and the number of markets she attends to prevent burnout.
“The big dream is wholesale and going to different retailers, and hopefully even maybe Publix eventually one of these days, but right now I am very comfy with Catapult… I think they give me a nice home and I’m happy just to be there,” Henry said. “It’s a great community and I’ve met so many people and it’s great to make connections.”
