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I was curious what popping oil all of you use for popping your popcorn. We use Pop-All at both theaters and we are very pleased with the results of it. I know the popcorn experts say that for the best taste, you have to use coconut oil. We used coconut oil when we first bought our 4-screen, but it was very messy and we didn't like the taste that much.

Never tried your Pop-All, but in the early 70's there was a coconut oil shortage and prices went off the scale... I tried cottonseed oil and soon realized how great coconut oil really is... Cottonseed oil is terrible!... It goes rancid FAST, scorches easy, and leaves a gooey waxy mess everywhere... Gonna take a LOT of convincing to make me abandon coconut oil, again... Easy cleanup, keeps nearly forever, smells absolutely yummy while popping, and makes delightful popcorn!... I'm a believer...

Amen, outaframe.

If there's one thing we know in Iowa it's corn. We use Snappy Popcorn from a little town called Breda here in Iowa and coconut oil sticks. It is AWESOME. We are just about to switch over to O'dells real butter topping and then we will have heaven on earth in a tub!

After four heart attacks I am not a fan of coconut oil. It is unbeatable. It tastes the best. Fat rules!

Having said that we started using canola oil. Taste tested it with our customers and it held up very well. They liked it and in many cases didn't know the difference.

We then put that up against our present popping oil. POP-WISE sunflower oil. We taste tessted this and our customer's liked it better than the canola. It also has less poly-fats. Is much healthier.

Most of our customers don't care unless directly questioned. The just want good tasting popcorn.

We have one lady who stops in (about once a week) on the way home and buys popcorn. Once in a while she comes back for a movie and more popcorn.

Personally, I tasted the canola and the sunflower oils and I think that the canols when initially ingested tasted better than the sunflower oil. The canola oil left a waxy feel in my mouth a short time after finishing it. The sunflower oil while tasting fine to start with left a light buttery aftertasre.

I have a question. How much do you talk to your customers about what they want in concessions or do you rely on outside data and sales?

Can't pass this one up.

To Leeler.

"One thing we know in Iowa is corn."

I thought Iowa led the nation in hog production. Don't get me wrong nothing like a good ham sandwich with corn on the cob. Probably eat more pork than corn.

I'm from Nebraska and I am sure we are known for some kind of agriculture. Oh...yeah .... The Cornhusking State. We do love our Cornhuskers. And yes we get our corn from Nebraska farms.

Hi DUNDEE, your concerns with fat content are easy to understand given your history... Have you ever really looked into the facts about Canola Oil?... The popular conception is that it's super-healthful, but if you check the internet, you'll learn that it's Rapeseed Oil from Canada, which was originally used as a machinery lubricant AND that it's poisonous before being highly processed for human consumption... There are sereveral sites which also claim its health benefits are highly overblown... I have never tried sunflower oil, but I DO like peanut oil BOTH for cooking and making popcorn... Peanut oil produces a "nutty" tasting popcorn which I sometimes make at home, but we agree that coconut oil is top of the heap... Since all the bad press that coconut oil received a few years back, it has come out that it too, is actually healthful IF used in moderation... Moderation is the key in all of this: I use less than half the coconut oil my mentor taught me to use (many years ago) and still get great results... The customers love it, and I feel I'm killing 'em off a little slower than most snack food makers are!... This debate will still probably be raging long after we are BOTH poking up daisies, but I still think coconut oil is the best way to go...

Dundee,

Your state motto may indicate you're the cornhusking state but in production we mop the floor with ya.
http://www.corn.org/web/uscprod.htm

Well, you guys can fight it out about who grows the most corn for chicken feed, hog food, and maybe even corn flakes, but we're talking POPCORN here, and THOSE bragging rights (or is it burping, farting rights?) are "Back Home Again In Indiana."... Fact is, there's an Orville Redenbacher packaging plant less than 6 blocks from me, and 3 other independent processors within a stone's throw... No wonder I'm such a corny 'ol fud!...

How many theaters are using peanut oil?

I have a child who is highly allergic to peanuts and I'd not expect theater popcorn to be made in peanut oil. Hate to see a customer have an anaphlaxic reaction...

I worry around ice cream parlors and any other places where cross contamination is a concern. Just a thought, some parents don't think to ask these quesions.

Good point Sal, I had never thought about that!... Never SOLD any popcorn made with peanut oil, but it does make great tasting popcorn, though somewhat "tougher" than what coconut oil makes... Allergy to peanuts/peanut products is a little discussed problem, and not too widespread, but can cause serious reactions and even death... I had never even heard of it until just a few years ago... Having a child with the allergy must be a nightmare for you, considering how often peanuts and peanut byproducts are an unlisted part of prepared foods...

Using peanut oil can be a real concern for most people. We've had a couple of people ask us if we popped our popcorn in peanut oil because whoever is with them is allergic to it. There was even a woman who said she was allergic to coconut oil. She bought a thing of carmel corn and noticed it said one of the ingredients was coconut oil (even though we pop our own carmel corn and use Pop All).

As far as other products go, even items such as Raisenetts will give a warning on there saying that they are manufactured in a place with peanuts. Although I don't know if people really pay attention to those warnings anyway.

you bet I do pay attention to those warnings. At least they're there now, a few years ago I had to rely on internet info about how things are manufactured. Regular m&m's for instance...manufactured on the same line as the peanut ones, considered a risk. Not on the label until lately.

And when he was a baby I used to wonder why I had to take him to the hospital every time we visiited his grandmother by plane...we stopped flying for a while because of the peanuts served.

Oh well. Just know what's in what you serve so you can answer the parent's questions if it comes up...not just peanuts but dairy products too. (Flavacol is Parve, no dairy)

But I do like Coconut the best though I'm afraid to use it because of the health consequences.

Isn't pop=all the one that Sam's sells?

The health concerns published by that outfit that later went after hot dogs were largely proven bogus by more credible sources. It was a big deal on the news after they scared the bejeebers out of the industry and had many of us putting dividers in our warmers so we could sell popcorn made with fishy-smelling canola oil ... grrrrrrr!

Coconut oil, like water, will kill you if you inhale it, inject it in your veins and live on a total diet of it for 42 days straight. If you're an occasional imbiber, you're probably not going to die from it.

That being said, I believe the only credible theatre popcorn is that which is popped in coconut oil and Flavacol. Of course, that comes from a 35 year habit!

As for topping, we use O'Dell's Superkist 2, which seems to be a good compromise between nasty canola-topping and real butter or butterfat.... though I personally like butter. Seems though, that butter tends to soak into the popcorn more than the oils do, raising the possibility that the corn can go soggy.

Seems that there isn't anything anywhere that someone isn't allergic to somewhere! I think that the best approach from both the helpful and legalistic attitudes is to post a small, black on white sign (so that it won't be mistaken for advertising that they will automatically ignore) that says something like: 'We pop our corn in ______, and the flavorings you select may have any or all of these ingredients, for those who must watch their intakes of such:
[and the List goes on]'

This follows the legal doctrine of Informed Consent, in which the customer has had the opportunity to inform himself and if he then has an unpleasant reaction, he consented to it tacitly. Of course, your sign would have to be probably 8-1/2x11 minimum with BOLD typeface and in a conspicuous place to be taken seriously, and I would use a video of the place with the sign and a copy of that day's local newspaper in the shot to document its placement and date. This is C.Y.A. territory, as well as good customer service.

Of course, such could grow to a ridiculous extent, with one expected to show all ingredients of all products not having their own ingredients labels/warnings right on their packages! Are exhibitors next expected to list the the ingredients of their soft drinks? Who will stay to read: "Water, certified by local utility to contain X percentages of these trace elements....[lab analysis available on request from Manager's office], Sugar of turbanado origin [imported from ____ by_____ on date of or after_____] and/or Aspartame [registered trademark of ____] (which has been found to be deleterious to a population of test rats consuming the equivalent of 6 pounds for a human body weight per day, every day for ten years), FD&C Red #40 [which replaced Red #1 after cages of rats died after eating the human equivalent of 20 pounds of it daily] (which has been found damaging to 0.11% of a group of test rats consuming the equivalent of ten pounds of such every day for ten years), Blue #1 (which has been found not healthful to a group of rats ingesting the equivalent of 900 pounds of such for a 'typical' human body weight daily for 30 years), Xanthan gum (a thickner that has been found to glue together the throats of rats -and some food processing machines- when consumed in the proportion of 300% of body weight on an age-prorated basis daily for 700 years and ingested between the hours of 1:AM and 1:05AM daily), Polyphosphate-60 and other pseudoxanthine preservatives of FD&C Class XIX inclusions (which have been added to and then removed from, and then again added again to the GRAS ["Genreally Recognized As Safe"] List of the US FDA over the years), etc., etc., etc." MacDonalds did this for a while to the extent of a poster of over 10,000 words for most of their products!

Pray that the exhibition industry never falls directly into the steely gaze of the implacable (and unreasonable) Food and Drug Administration! As the old Arab curse puts it: 'May your life be filled with lawyers!'

I find it best to say one thing when someone asks if there is a certain ingredient in a product. "X is what this product says it has in it but I can't guarantee it is free of X" or something to that effect. I haven't had one complaint about it from people with allergies... some buy what they are asking about and some don't.