Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 2, 1990 TAG: 9005010134
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FLORENCE FABRICANT THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Consumption of popcorn has increased by more than 50 percent in the past 10 years.
Last year the rate of growth in popcorn sales was greater than that for any other snack food. Sales now exceed $2 billion a year, according to the Snack Food Association, a trade group.
It is estimated that every man, woman and child in the United States munches 56 quarts of popcorn annually, according to the Popcorn Institute, a promotional organization for the popcorn industry.
About 70 percent is eaten at home, as it has been since 1966. Until the late 1950s more popcorn was eaten away from home, especially at the movies. Television brought popcorn home and videotapes have kept it there.
More than half the popcorn eaten today is made in microwave ovens. Now sales of the new light versions of microwave popcorn - fewer calories, no cholesterol - are increasing dramatically.
Earlier this month Supermarket News, a weekly newspaper that covers the grocery industry, reported that in some areas of the country light microwave popcorn is outselling regular.
The Orville Redenbacher brand, owned by the Beatrice Co. since 1976, was the first to introduce a microwave popcorn, and last August it came out with the first light microwave popcorns, a plain one and one with artificial butter flavor and no cholesterol.
Other leading brands, including Pop-Secret (made by General Mills) and Jolly Time (American Popcorn), have also introduced light microwave popcorns.
Because popcorn is a high-fiber, whole-grain food, it is one of the rare snacks to earn the blessing of diet authorities, provided it's not made in oil, drenched with butter and doused with salt.
Air-popped corn with nothing added is the most healthful version. It has 90 calories in three cups, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The light microwave popcorns that reduce the amount of salt, added fat and oil in the product and replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats are also better than traditional oil-popped popcorn.
Some commercial popcorns consist of 50 percent or more fat and have as much as 200 calories in three cups.
Al Rickard, director of communications for the Snack Food Association, predicts that more flavors will be introduced in light microwave popcorns in the coming months.
"The interest in flavors is growing," he said. The popcorn flavor news now is in white cheddar cheese.
Prepopped white cheddar popcorn is the fastest-growing segment of the market, up an estimated 30 percent in 1989 over 1988, Rickard said.
Smartfood, the first white cheddar cheese popcorn, came on the market in Massachusetts five years ago. Smartfoods Inc., now a $12 million concern, has made the popcorn available nationwide last month.
"I can't believe how well the white cheddar category has done," Rickard said.
Ann Whithey first concocted a batch of the white cheddar popcorn on her kitchen stove in Boston as a product to fill reclosable packages that her husband, Andrew, and his partner, Ken Meyers, were trying to market.
"The popcorn turned out better than the package," said Meyers, president of the company, which was sold to Frito-Lay a little more than a year ago.
"Unlike the cheese popcorn already on the market, ours was made with real cheese and it didn't glow in the dark," Meyers said. "We wanted quality and we were up against the negative consumer image, because prepopped popcorn in a bag was considered garbage, not worth the money because it's not fresh and you can make it better and cheaper at home."
Smartfood, sold in distinctive black bags, is tender air-popped popcorn tossed with what is essentially a cheese sauce made with a mixture of white cheddar cheese, corn oil, buttermilk, whey and salt. Meyers said there are now about two dozen imitators on the market.
Specialty popcorns like Smartfood have sold well in America since the first one, Cracker Jack, a combination of caramel corn and peanuts, came on the market nearly 100 years ago.
If all the boxes of Cracker Jack sold since then were stacked end to end they would reach halfway to the moon. Sales of Cracker Jack are still strong, according to Borden Inc., which has owned it since 1964. The company, the world's largest user of popcorn, pops 18 to 20 tons a day.
When the Orville Redenbacher brand was introduced in 1970, it was labeled "gourmet" and was sold only in the Marshall Field's department store in Chicago, but in five years it became the leading brand of popcorn in the country.
Redenbacher, a popcorn pioneer who is now 83, became involved in breeding popcorn in 1941. He is still active in Chester Inc., the agricultural development company in which he is a partner.
He said that through thousands of crossbreeding experiments, agronomists have achieved kernels that increase in volume more than 40 times when they are popped.
With earlier breeds, increases of 15 to 20 times the kernel size were more typical.
"The next development is to increase quality," he said, "to get at 100 percent pop." That means that in a batch there would be no unpopped kernels (UPKs, in the trade, or "old maids").
Redenbacher said the amount of moisture in the kernel is critical, with about 13 percent the ideal. Heat causes the moisture in kernels to turn to steam and explode. Redenbacher recommends storing unpopped popcorn in the refrigerator to preserve the moisture content.
Popcorn has existed in the Americas for thousands of years. Archeologists have determined that kernels found in a bat cave in New Mexico are 5,600 years old, and have also determined that popcorn was the earliest form of maize.
Popcorn grains 1,000 years old found in Indian tombs in Peru can still be popped.
The best-known tidbit of popcorn history is probably that it was introduced to Europeans at the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth, Mass.
Quadequina, brother of Chief Massasoit of the Wampanoag Indians, brought some popcorn for the colonists to try. Subsequently, the settlers ate it for breakfast with milk and sugar, the first puffed cereal.
There is evidence that some Indians popped the corn right on the cob by throwing the whole ear into a fire. That technique has recently been updated by companies selling microwave popcorn on the cob.
The ear is put in a bag and into the microwave oven, where the kernels pop right on the ear. Among companies marketing this gimmick are All Ears Microwave Popcorn and Pop-a-Cob.
Another recent variation is popcorn cakes, a corn version of rice cakes. They were introduced by the H.J. Heinz Co.'s Chico-San and are now also made by Quaker Oats.
Like other varieties of corn, popcorn comes in many colors. Yellow is the most widely cultivated, and there are also white, red, blue, black and brown varieties.
The variety of yellow popcorn used by movie theater concessions has a relatively coarse hull so it withstands handling.
Better grades of popcorn have a more velvety tenderness. Most movie concessions pop their corn in highly saturated coconut oil, which does not burn.
About 10 percent of popcorn is white; it is more popular in the Northern states, Redenbacher said. Now some companies are selling the red, blue, black and brown popcorns as novelties.
by CNB