Unique Gift Ideas for Father’s Day: Part 1

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Welcome Back,

It’s time to dive into summer! We can’t wait for the constant warm weather, sunshine and another holiday to celebrate our other very important parent: Dad. If finding the perfect gift for dad seems like it’s always the hardest thing to do, keep check back with us! We have great gift ideas that Dad will both love and be impressed with… let’s jump in!

zig zag popcorn samplerUnique Father’s Day Gift Idea #1: Father’s Day Summer Movie Kit

If there is one thing we love about summer, it would definitely be the great summer blockbusters hitting the screen every weekend. We may be biased, but nothing goes better together than a great movie and some delicious popcorn. For this Father’s Day, put together a fun and delicious kit with all of Dad’s favorite movie snacks, his favorite Popcorn Factory popcorn, and a movie he’s sure to love!

Order our Zig-Zag Sampler that includes creamy vanilla caramels, sour hard candies, chocolate chip cookies, dry roast peanuts, assorted Jelly Belly® beans, and a delicious popcorn trio of robust Cheese, White Cheddar and Almond Pecan corn with whole almonds and pecans tossed in a buttery glaze. Pair this with a movie theater gift card from your local theater with a promise to go see a movie with Dear ol’ Dad.

Or you could try our Movie Night Scoop Boxes, which come in a set of two, with all-natural Butter popcorn, red licorice twists, malted milk balls, gummy bears and Kiddy Mix candies. Pair this with a movie theater gift card or a new DVD/Blue-Ray movie that he is sure to love! Our Popcorn Bowl & Snacks gift will definitely ensure a great movie night at home and includes all-natural Butter, robust Cheese and secret-recipe Caramel corn, red licorice, Jelly Belly® beans, chocolate chip cookies and creamy, foil-wrapped chocolates. Fathers day movie popcorn gifts

Our Ultimate Dad DVD/Blue-Ray Movie Picks:

In Theater Picks:

Check back with us next week for another Unique Father’s Day Gift Idea! 

The Popcorn Factory FUNdraiser Program

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fundraisingFor the last 30 years, The Popcorn Factory has been the leader in providing fun and delicious popcorn treats that bring a smile to all who try them. We’ve stayed on top because we love what we do and aren’t afraid to try new ideas; which is why we’re proud to present to all of our fans, our new 2012 FUNdraising Program!

Our people pleasing popcorn snacks are already enjoyed for their premium taste and quality, but now you can share and enjoy these treats while receiving 25-50% profit for your organization or charity!

So what should you do to ensure a successful fundraiser?

  • Plan early and set a goal! Taking the time to work on your fundraiser gives you the opportunity for success, especially when you have realistic goals to work for.
  • Make a list of reliable volunteers! You need people who are just as excited and dedicated to making your fundraiser effective.  Choose those who you know have the time and ability to put in the hard work with you during your endeavors.
  • Consider year round fundraising! We’re sure your initial fundraiser will be a hit, so continue the cause and make some customers very happy that they can refill their orders, or bring smiles to new faces!
  • Maximize your opportunities at events! Our delicious popcorn is the perfect snack for school and sporting events, you’ll find a lot of happy customers and be able to reach your goals.
  • Most importantly…Make it fun!

fundraisingIt’s simple: Choose from our FUNdraising gift selections in either our gift items like gift tins, snack assortments, and Clear Favorites popcorn canisters or select from our gourmet individual bags of popcorn flavors or our famous gourmet popcorn balls. With supplies this delicious, they’ll certainly go fast! Once they’re sold, your gifts can be shipped directly to you for distribution or to the recipients for an easy process. You earn 25% profit from our Gift Item collection sales, and 50% profit from our gourmet popcorn bags and gourmet popcorn balls!

Of course we can’t resist offering great deals; you can receive a 50% discount on an 18 pack case of gourmet popcorn bags, or a 100 pack case of gourmet popcorn balls!

Check out our FUNdraising page here and see how you can get started on helping your organization!

 

National Caramel Popcorn Day

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caramel popcornIt’s here, one of our favorite days! Happy National Caramel Popcorn Day! 

We take our caramel popcorn very seriously around here. As one of our top flavors that has been the inspiration for so many of our wonderful popcorn treats, a lot of love and labor goes into making our secret recipe caramel popcorn. First we…well, we can’t actually tell you that part! And then we…hmm we can’t tell you that part either. What we can tell you is that we use a super special secret recipe for our caramel, and we keep this recipe in a very safe location that only four people can access! I guess we can tell you one little secret: we use real butter in our recipe (shhh…don’t tell anyone!).

smores popcornWe love our caramel recipe so much, that many of the other recipes we’ve created over the past several years have been based on our caramel recipe. Some regular and season flavors include our caramel apple popcorn (with REAL apple pieces), almond pecan, butter toffee and butter toffee almond, banana cream pie popcorn, chocolate caramel, our fan-favorite s’mores popcorn, and thai peanut to name a few.

Did you know that The Popcorn Factory makes roughly 2 million pounds of caramel corn each year? And of that 2 million pounds, 1,700,000 pounds is caramel and 300,000 pounds is corn. We have special equipment that allows us to make more than 1000 pounds of caramel corn per hour. This equates to about 17 pounds every minute! We also have a team of people dedicated to ensuring that the first pound of caramel popcorn is as high in quality as the 2 millionth. People really love their caramel popcorn, and we’re certainly at the top of that list!

So how should you celebrate your National Caramel Popcorn Day? Deliciously of course! But here’s a few pointers anyway. 

  • Combine your caramel corn with sliced apples for a sweet and refreshing treat
  • Do a traditional “Chicago Mix” and combine caramel corn with cheese popcorn!
  • Make caramel popcorn crispy treats with melted butter and marshmallows

We’ll be celebrating all day, so check our Facebook page and website and join in the fun!

 

 

Made In the USA Popcorn

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 Welcome back Popcorn fans

To say that popcorn is our passion would be a huge understatement. Here at The Popcorn Factory we live, breathe, (and most importantly) eat popcorn! From the moment an idea “pops” into our head to the time our delicious popcorn gift reaches your door, we’re working hard to supply you with the best tasting popcorn and fun popcorn gifts that could be imagined. We care about each gift tin design, material, natural flavors, down to each individual kernel; we track it all. And we’re able to keep track of every last popcorn kernel and stay with it throughout the entire process because our popcorn is popped fresh from corn grown in the USA!

made in the usa popcorn america

Made in the USA popcorn

Being an Illinois popcorn store, we know that the United States is the leading provider of the best corn all over the world. When popping over 1 million pounds of popcorn per year, we know we have to look for the best. So why would we ever want to travel far when we have premium corn in our own backyard? This is why we’re proud to display our “Made in the USA” flag banner at the top of our website!

The Popcorn Factory is a Made in the USA kind of business. Our corn is grown here on American soil and taken to our facility in Lake Forest, Illinois for popping using 100% corn oil and infusions of the tastiest and natural flavoring! At our facility, you’ll find the creative behind our fresh popcorn gifts working to make even more fun and enjoyable popcorn gifts for you. Here, you’ll also find our many kettles of natural flavoring, our expert popping machines and workers bringing you the best popcorn gifts around.

Even the gift tins your delicious popcorn treat come in are important to us. Our 3 flavor, 4 flavor and single flavor popcorn tins are a “100% Made in the USA” gift, perfect for holding our 100% Made in the USA popcorn! In addition, all of our gifts are assembled and distributed from our Lake Forest facility.

For the last 30 years, The Popcorn Factory has been the “popcorn authority” with our remarkable collection of popcorn gifts and unique popcorn flavors. We’re committed to our standard of excellence in providing the best and freshest popcorn and popcorn gifts. We guarantee complete satisfaction, from a “Made in the USA” company you can trust!

Happy Popping!

 

National Popcorn Day

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National Popcorn DayHello Popcorn Fans!

Today is National Popcorn Day and we couldn’t be happier! We’ve been working hard to come up with some great new popcorn gifts that will make any popcorn lover POP with excitement.

It’s no secret that we love popcorn, but what we love more than popcorn is being able to share all of our delicious popcorn flavors and popcorn gifts with other fellow popcorn lovers. When you’re at The Popcorn Factory, popcorn is your life. Every day is National Popcorn Day for us, and we wouldn’t have it any other way! We have our traditional favorite popcorn flavors like our natural butter popcorn, cheese popcorn made with real cheese, our secret recipe caramel popcorn (a real winner!), and our savory white cheddar popcorn, all ready to delight any lucky popcorn recipient.

What sets The Popcorn Factory apart from all the other popcorn makers out there is our ingenuity and daringness to go out there and create the perfect popcorn flavor perfect for any and all popcorn connoisseurs! Our jalapeno flavored popcorn has flavor that’s packed with a punch, but everyone who has ever tried it counts it among their favorite popcorn flavors. The buffalo ranch flavored popcorn is delightfully zingy and will leave you wanting more. There will never be another need for chips when you taste our cracked pepper flavored popcorn. And once you get to our savory ginger teriyaki flavored popcorn, it will be hard to find another snack you want other than our innovative popcorn flavors!

National Popcorn DayOf course, what kind of National Popcorn Day would it be without a delectable helping of some of our very best sweet popcorn creations? For chocolate lovers out there, try our decadent Drizzled Caramel Corn, made with our secret recipe caramel popcorn with chocolate generously drizzled over…it’s positively sinful. Our s’mores popcorn is unparalleled in flavor and great ideas put to test. You’ll never want to go camping or sit around a fire without our s’mores popcorn at your side. Have we mentioned that The Popcorn Factory’s kettle corn is the best around? We use old-fashioned copper kettles to give it that perfect, uncompromising taste that made it one of the most popular popcorn flavors to begin with! Our newer dark chocolate and sea salt popcorn is basically the stuff all popcorn dreams are made of. Taking our secret recipe caramel popcorn and covering it with dark chocolate and a helpful sprinkle of gourmet sea salt, it becomes the perfect combination of sweet and savory and everything you’ve been looking for in the perfect popcorn flavor. There’s something especially sweet about our peanut brittle popcorn. Sure it’s rich and buttery taste, mixed with a candy crunch is completely irresistible, but what makes it even sweeter is that it’s a Popcorn Factory family special recipe. A premium treat in itself, our almond pecan popcorn is a real prize for any popcorn enthusiast. Combining our favorite secret recipe caramel popcorn and an array of almonds and pecans, this popcorn flavor perfects a sweet and buttery taste. We could never forget about our red-hot and delicious cinnamon popcorn flavor, and neither will you after you’ve tried it!

The Popcorn Factory has been the leading popcorn innovators for the last 30 years. We live, eat, and breathe popcorn. When we create our new popcorn flavors, we do it for all the other popcorn lovers out there, and especially for those who don’t know that they’re popcorn lovers yet! Celebrate National Popcorn Day with us deliciously and try out on the best popcorn flavors that anyone has to offer. We know you’ll find your favorite and will continue on our journey with us to find the perfect popcorn treat!

Happy National Popcorn Day, everyone! Enjoy Deliciously.

 

College Care Packages for Finals

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Hello Popcorn Pals!

The Holiday season is upon us! That means the family is home and together, everyone sitting around the fireplace, cups of hot cocoa, building snowmen, warm sweaters and slippers, and watching holiday movies around the clock…that is, after college finals are over.

Probably the most stressful time of the winter season (next to visiting that one weird aunt), college semester finals are a time when most students will be lucky if they even have the time or energy to get in one good meal. Late night study sessions will extend far later than any campus convenience store stays open, and they’ll need something to refuel with when they get that study break craving. Help out your scholar and send them a light, fun snack that they’ll enjoy!

college care package survival kit popcorn gift tin snack assortment

College Survival Kit Popcorn Snack Tin $29.99; Product code: C3420C

Our popcorn makes the perfect college study break treat. Light, fluffy, and packed with flavor; a few (or more!) handfuls of this treat won’t leave studiers feeling sluggish or too full to concentrate. Plus, they’re great for sharing with a large study group or college roommates. We like to think we’ve perfected the perfect college snack for those final study breaks, with our college survival snack gift tins. Not only do we offer our delicious popcorn flavors in butter, cheese, or secret recipe caramel, we also throw in mouthwatering chocolate chip cookies, savory chips, chocolates, and various candies. All of the essential treats to make your college gift that much sweeter!

These college care packages won’t break the bank either! With a majority of college gifts ranging from $19.99 to $39.99, you can make sure your college kid is eating a tasty snack without having to take out another loan for it. Our exclusively decorated tins and containers can be reused again and again for storage, snack, or even decoration.

Don’t miss out on showing school pride either. Check to see if your college has partnered up with us for a specially decorated tin donning the school colors and mascot! They make for the perfect accessory at any tailgating party or in the stands snack.

College gear popcorn gift tins Illinois Georgia North Carolina Virginia Michigan
College Popcorn Gift Tins

Order your college care packages soon, and let your hard-working college student know that you’re thinking of them…and their snack time!

Thanksgiving Traditions

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The Holiday season is in full swing for us at The Popcorn Factory, and certainly with you too! We’re planning so many great things for Thanksgiving and our Winter Holidays that we can’t wait to share them with all of you.

Of course, all of our attention and focus right now is on one of our favorite Holidays: Thanksgiving. Being the popcorn and Holiday savvy poppers we are, we know that Thanksgiving and popcorn go hand in hand!

Popcorn was around for the very first Thanksgiving Day dinner in Plymouth, Massachusetts (and was a sure-fire hit if we do say!) Bags of popped corn were brought to the first Thanksgiving feast as a gift from the chief’s brother. Native Americans made popcorn by holding an oiled ear of corn on a stick over fire and then eating the popped corn off of the ear! Colonists later incorporated popcorn into their daily meals and began using popcorn with milk or cream, and sugar, making it the first known breakfast cereal! (I bet our secret recipe caramel popcorn or kettle corn would be perfect to try this way!) This is just another example of popcorn leading the way in tasty snacks and meals.

Popcorn is the ultimate Thanksgiving tradition, so why not make it apart of yours? Light, fluffy, and made with delicious and innovating flavors, our popcorn complements any occasion or meal. You can enjoy our real buttery popcorn as a before-dinner snack while you’re watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Chomp down on our natural cheese popcorn without ruining your appetite, as you watch and root for the Packers or Lions, Dolphins or Cowboys, and the 49ers or Ravens! (Not to brag, but we hear our popcorn tastes even greater than a win when coming from one of our many NFL popcorn tins that we offer).

Just finished a huge Thanksgiving dinner but you still want dessert? Our secret recipe caramel popcorn makes the perfect post-Thanksgiving dinner dessert. This buttery and sweet combination is a super satisfying treat and goes perfectly with any turkey, potato, or green dish (plus, who are we to shake up a several century’s long tradition of popcorn at Thanksgiving!) Simple and tasty to eat, without putting a strain on an already full stomach!

We’ve been popping since 1979 with fresh, fun, and delicious popcorn flavors, so let us be your popcorn experts this Thanksgiving holiday and get a great snack that you can be thankful for!

Celebrate National Popcorn Month with Us!

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We must be very POPular if we get our own month! October is National Popcorn Month and we couldn’t be happier. Why October you ask? For over 30 years (Hey! That’s how long we’ve been around!), October has taken the title of National Popcorn Month because of the fall harvest in the Midwest every year. It was given the official title in 1999, under then Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman! And now every year, we get an extra reason to celebrate the snack we love most: Popcorn!

We’re not the only ones crazy for kernels though! Popcorn was actually discovered first by Native Americans in North America and was used as everyday food or as a supplement to other meals. Evidence was found of popcorn being made in 3600 B.C. in New Mexico, making it one of the oldest forms of cooking corn! Who knew it wasn’t just for snacking during movies or baseball? (Well, clearly historians and us of course). An early Spanish account of a ceremony honoring the Aztec gods who watched over fishermen reads: “They scattered before him parched corn, called momochitl, a kind of corn which bursts when parched and discloses its contents and makes itself look like a very white flower; they said these were hailstones given to the god of water.” (source).

We may be biased, but I think everyone can agree that popcorn is the perfect snack to enjoy year long, with so many variations to choose from! Our all natural butter popcorn is a staple for any movie night; mix it up and add our real cheese popcorn for a popcorn purist’s dream mix! No one can resist our secret recipe caramel popcorn, sweet and buttery and always fresh. We’re also constantly coming up with new and unique flavors to try! Our peanut brittle popcorn is actually a staff family recipe. Our jalapeno popcorn can rope in anyone who tries it. For any Fall fans out there, our caramel apple popcorn is a must have!

Is your mouth watering yet? Head on over to our site ThePopcornFactory.com and look at all the scrumptious selections we have to offer! Don’t forget to try our scary good Halloween collection while it lasts; a wide assortment of savory and sweet popcorn as well as other delicious treats! A Halloween Treat just for you: Save $10 on your order of $50 or more on regular priced items using the promo code “SCARY” before 10/24/2011. You’ll be celebrating the holiday deliciously in no time!

Happy Hauntings and Poppings!

Back To School Cool

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College Extreme Survival Kit Snack Assortment & 3-Way Popcorn Tins $44.99 - $59.99

Another school year is here! It’s time for buying books, going to classes, late-night study sessions, and the occasional paper or test. Or perhaps this is yours or your loved ones first year going away for college and making a fresh start. No matter which case, it is always a fun, exciting (and maybe a little scary) time for everyone.

During this crazy and busy school time, we know that it’s the comforts of home that everyone looks forward to most. Whether you’re sending a care package, homecoming gift, study snack, or even their favorite snacks, it will definitely be appreciated (and maybe you’ll even get a phone call home!). We like to think that we’ve perfected our own kind of college survival kits and college study kits; the perfect gifts to let your little think-tank know that you miss and support them…and that you don’t want them to starve when they’ve run out of late night snacks and the campus store is closed! A delicious popcorn treat can really help keep focus for an all-night study session, and is the perfect between meal snack to keep them full and happy.

These tins are also perfect for fast approaching Homecoming weekends! Show your school pride if you’re an Illini, Badger, or any of your other favorite mascots. These college team tins are great to bring to any tailgating parties, mid-game cravings, or a delicious gift to any alumnus.

We don’t like to brag (too much) but we bet if they shared one of our delicious sample popcorn tins with our secret recipe caramel, or our real cheese cheddar popcorn, they will be making friends in no time. Several of our snack tins include our favorite flavors of popcorn like butter, white cheddar, or secret recipe caramel. They also include a variety of tasty bites like cookies, chips, candy and many more sweets to keep your scholars satisfied. We can even personalize the messages on the tins with a picture or note (this would be the perfect time for any silly family photos from home). When they’re done with the goodies inside, the tins are perfect for storage and decorated with your University’s logo and colors or fun, bright designs so that they can easily fit in with the dorm décor.

So what do you all think? Let us know in the comments what would be in your ultimate college survival tin? Don’t forget to check us out on Facebook as well!

Happy Birthday Popcorn Blog Party! 3 Prizes!

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Happy Birthday Popcorn!

Happy Birthday Popcorn!

Welcome to The Popcorn Factory Happy Birthday Popcorn Blog Party!

Birthdays and Popcorn. They go together like a horse and carriage, right?

In about a paragraph or two, tell us how you feel popcorn and birthdays fit together. If you remember certain birthday celebrations past or present, feel free to share those as well. If you have some thoughts on how popcorn gifts can be made even more special for birthday celebrations, we would love to hear that as well. As you can,  with our name being  The Popcorn Factory, we live the world of popcorn each and every day and we just love it! So when our customers starting talking ‘some popcorn’ with us, it really makes our day. Take a look at our Birthday Popcorn Collection as well when you get the chance.

We will select 3 random winners!

Surprise “1st Post” Winner) Deborah Curran

Winner #1) Dora

Winner #2) Sandy

Winner #3) Lori Williams

Go Birthdays! Go Popcorn!