Making the best Popcorn

[Mike Blakesley]

We keep our prices low ($3.00) for a large, this results in most customers purchasing popcorn.. and we sell a lot of to-go orders.

How big of a container are you selling for $3? You may be leaving a lot of money on the table.

For what it's worth, our popcorn prices range from $4.75 to $7.75 and we never get a single complaint about our prices. Many people are surprised that our prices are so low.

[Don Furr]

We bought all of our popcorn from Blevins through our supplier. We cooked with Flavocol salt and coconut oil at a 4 to one ratio (If I remember correctly) and Odell's topping.
Never had a complaint. Back in the dollar house days we sold 130 oz bags for $5.00.

[Darin Steffl]

What are your current popcorn prices with or without sales tax

Small 85 oz bag - $5
Med 130 oz bag - $6
Large 170 oz bag - $7
Tax included in those prices.

I'm really considering going to 46, 85, 130 oz tubs now that people have shared their thoughts in this thread and my other one about opening bags ha. If I switch to these lower ounce sizes of tubs, my pricing through Vistar is within pennies of the bags so cost wise, I can make it work without increasing our prices.

I think we're going to order a box of the Supurkist to try out since it seems popular and tasty. I don't think the LouAna or Funtastic topping oil has any taste right now. Seems bland.

[Kenneth Wuepper]

Hello Mike,
Curious about the $ .75 on the end of your prices.
I know about the $ .99 to keep the apparent price less than the next higher dollar but what is the logic behind the lesser?
Perhaps you have stumbled upon a great marketing tool there.

KEN

[Mike Blakesley]

Curious about the $ .75 on the end of your prices.

Yeah, it's a case of me not wanting to go to the next dollar higher.... but also not wanting to mess with a lot of pennies. The majority of our prices end in some 25¢ increment rather than 00.

Whenever we raise ticket prices we tend to go in 50-cent increments, so the next time the adult goes up, it'll be $9.25, maybe sooner than later if inflation continues the way it has been.

[Darin Steffl]

What the best way to store popcorn in bags and once they're opened to keep the right moisture content? We buy weaver gold and the bags appear to have tiny holes in them to vent the kernels. Do we need to store at a certain temperature and humidity to make sure the corn doesn't dry out?

What about when we open a bag? Should we dump it into an airtight container right away and seal it up when we're not using it?

[Mike Blakesley]

In the bags, just keep it in a cool dry place. You don't need to go nuts with climate control, just keep it off the floor and not in a hot room.

What we do once bags are opened is, we have a five-gallon bucket with a screw-on lid. This holds a whole bag of popcorn and sits behind the popcorn machine. Our machine has a drawer that also holds a whole bag. So, when the drawer gets near empty, the employee is supposed to put the entire contents of the bucket into the drawer, then go get a new bag and refill the bucket. This eliminates half-full bags sitting around, and we always have a handy supply of fresh popcorn ready to go. They are not supposed to use popcorn directly out of the bucket, but sometimes they do......a pet peeve of mine is when someone tells me "we're out of popcorn" and it turns out the drawer AND the bucket are empty. So, it's not a perfect system.

[Carsten Kurz]

We use a plastic container with a sealing lid to store a full bag of corn. You should be able to find different types of containers that fit your bill. I guess you could just as well keep the corn in it's bag and seal it with a clamp or similar device. Depends a bit on how you access the kernels for popping and how quickly you use up a full bag

[Helmut Maripuu]

Try popping in a vacuum?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiMseDBTp7s

[Mike Blakesley]

The biggest thing with the bags is to keep them sealed up and off the floor, so as not to attract mice or other varmints.

[Jon Dent]

Anybody notice any real differences between coconut oil manufacturers? We've done LouAnna for ages but Vistar has been out of stock for a bit so we may have to explore alternatives. I know we can get the LouAnna from other suppliers but they'd have to ship it to us, and that's really fricking expensive.

[Juan Jose Garcia Calvo]

Hello.
I think here in Spain we don't make the popcorns in the same "american" way you make it there.

I read you use "topping" oil or melted butter, So you put the oil over the pop corn once they are popped or you put the oil (or butter) in the pan with the corn??

Here most of cinemas (including us) put sunflower vegetal oil (I don't know where to buy coconut oil) at the beginning of the corn cooking, and the salt too (powdered salt), and that's all.

Can you tell me (or show me a video) about cooking your "american style" pop corns?

Here, butter is more than 4€/Kg, that is very very much expensive than sunflower oil, but I think popcorn are sold cheaper here than in the US,

I have always wondered how the temperature of the casserole influences the result of the popcorn, in its crunchiness. Our CRETORS machine don't let change their temperature value.

We think we need to offer our customers new things, to atract them to the cinema instead let them rest at home with their 65" oled TV screens and films from Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix...,

Most of times, USA lead the cinema industrie (with permission from bollywood) and go one step ahead, so it would be very interesting know what's new there.

Thanks!!

[Carsten Kurz]

I always wondered, how do americans eat popcorn that has been soaked with butter or other toppings? What do you do with your greasy fingers afterwards?

I would think that, in order to keep butter from burning, one could add a bit of butter once the popping of the kernels starts. That way it shouldn't burn. I guess I'll try that... We in Germany offer both sweet and salted popcorn, but most people here prefer sweet. I add a tiny pinch of curry powder to our salted popcorn. And, yes, we DO get Flavacol here.

[Frank Cox]

The way that I make popcorn here (and I assume it's the same pretty much everywhere) is that I put the kernels and this oil into the kettle along with a tiny bit of popcorn salt.

Here's the popping oil that I use:

1150878-51204-Harlans-Popcorn-Popping-Oil-4L.jpg
When I serve the popcorn (take it out of the machine and put it into the container for the customer) I ask if they want butter on it and if they say they do I pump a few squirts of melted butter on top of the popcorn in the bucket. About 25% of the customers want "butter in the middle" so I just fill the container halfway and put some butter on it then fill it the rest of the way and put more butter on top.

I also have a salt shaker filled with popcorn salt on the counter and most people shake some of the salt onto their popcorn after they get it. Most of the "butter in the middle" people want to shake some salt into the middle too before I finish filling up the container.

As for greasy fingers, that's why I have a napkin dispenser near the counter.

I don't eat much popcorn myself but on the relatively rare occasions that I get a popcorn urge I never put butter on my container of popcorn. As you say, it's too greasy and I don't like it. But I do salt the hell out of it.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I always wondered, how do americans eat popcorn that has been soaked with butter or other toppings? What do you do with your greasy fingers afterwards?

I would think that, in order to keep butter from burning, one could add a bit of butter once the popping of the kernels starts. That way it shouldn't burn. I guess I'll try that... We in Germany offer both sweet and salted popcorn, but most people here prefer sweet. I add a tiny pinch of curry powder to our salted popcorn. And, yes, we DO get Flavacol here.

You can't keep normal butter from burning, if you make popcorn in a traditional popper, but you can use clarified butter, known as Butterschmalz in Germany as an alternative. You can make popcorn in small batches with pure butter on your stove, but you need to regulate the temperature carefully to avoid burning.

Popping popcorn in pure butterfat is pretty expensive, that's why cheaper oils and fats are commonly used. Pure coconut fat comes very close to the taste of clarified butter, but it still misses a bit of the butter taste.

Pouring some greasy (fake) butter over popcorn really is an American thing, but then again, people also pour loads of (fake) cheese over their nachos around here.

Personally, my favorite is to mix sweet popcorn with salty popcorn. I also sometimes mix up a batch with both sugar and salt in it.