Alfonso Porras.

Alfonso Porras owns Sir Walter Candy, a South Salt Lake, Utah-based specialty candy manufacturer producing chocolate, hard candy, and confectionery products under the Sir Walter brand as well as private-label manufacturing for regional and national retailers.

Under his leadership, the company has grown into a meaningful contract manufacturer and branded confectionery producer serving the western United States. He was named the 2025 SBA Utah Small Business Person of the Year. Branded food manufacturing operated out of a single production facility is a particularly durable category of American small business - disciplined quality standards combined with cost-effective operations can produce businesses that last generations. Porras's trajectory as an immigrant-founded Utah manufacturer building a confectionery business reflects a pattern that has played out repeatedly in Mountain West states: Hispanic immigrant entrepreneurship combined with regional manufacturing capacity produces branded specialty food businesses that have become meaningful drivers of economic growth in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado. Specialty food manufacturers like Sir Walter are the kind of businesses that rarely appear in national business press but employ substantial numbers of people in their communities.