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“Mr. Popcorn” Sells More Than 200 Popcorn Flavors
“I look at everyday food and ask, ‘Why can’t I put that flavor into popcorn?’” explains Scott Trimble when asked how he managed to come up with more than 200 flavors of popcorn. Some of the unique flavors he offers include frosted lemon cookie, minty shamrock, taco supreme and Pub Grub. He and his crew do everything, from planting the seed to popping and selling the finished flavored popcorn.
    Trimble got started as a boy, growing his own popcorn and making caramel corn in a brown paper bag. At first he gave it away, then slowly built a business when people started asking where they could buy it. He saved money to buy a cabinet popcorn popper and rented space in a certified kitchen before investing in a building in Heyworth, Ill., in 2016.
    “Now we have the biggest popcorn popper in the region. It pops 2 1/2 lbs. of kernels for each batch, so we can make 175 lbs. of popped corn an hour,” Trimble says. He cooks up his flavorings on a commercial stove.
    “Temperature is critical. The whole art of making caramel is just the controlled burning of sugar,” he says. “Change the temperature 5 degrees and it crunches and tastes different.”
    Once it’s at the right temperature, the syrup is poured over the popcorn in a 40-gal. barrel that turns slowly as he mixes it by hand before laying it out to cool to room temperature before bagging.
    He grows hull-less varieties and buys butter from a family farm and sugar from a farmer-owned sugar plant. He plants six varieties each year, including blue and black popcorn.
    Trimble offers six staple flavors - Buttery Caramel Corn, Cheddar Cheese, Big City Mix (Caramel, Cheddar & White Cheddar mix), Pub Grub (Spicy Caramel, Salted Bavarian Pretzel, Beer Cheese & Bacon Cheddar), Frosted Kettle Corn, and Movie Theater Butter Corn.
    He sells small ($4/quart) and large ($10/gallon) bags at his store and through many other stores, including most Hy-Vee stores in Illinois. He also sells through Facebook and Twitter and plans to have a website soon.
    “Schools use it for fundraisers,” he says. “The nice thing about it is they actually make money. The organization is helped, and I get new customers.”
    Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Trimbles Produce Farm, 101 W. Main, Heyworth, Ill. 61745 (ph 217 202-2994; Facebook: Trimble's Produce Farm; trimblesplantsandproduce@yahoo.com).


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2020 - Volume #44, Issue #3