Award-winning gourmet popcorn: a new dimension of taste
Interview with Adam Sopher, Co-Founder & Director of Joe & Seph's
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European Business: Eating popcorn while watching a movie in cinema belongs together for many people. Isn´t popcorn a cinema-only snack?
Adam Sopher: No, popcorn is a great snack because it holds flavour. We use mushroom kernels so the pieces of popcorn are actually quite large and can hold a lot of flavour on them. The great thing about popcorn is that you can create a fantastic tasting snack. Popcorn is naturally gluten-free and is a great snack for those who are gluten-intolerant. There is room for snacking popcorn everywhere like in coffee shops, pubs, hotels or airlines. We supply a lot of different customer types like Lufthansa, Cineworld Cinemas and hotels including big hotel groups. So, popcorn it is not limited to cinemas only.
European Business: How does your gourmet popcorn differ from cinema popcorn?
Adam Sopher: We spend a lot time with cinema groups to incrementally prove that our popcorn is the best. A customer who buys normal cinema popcorn, will buy normal cinema popcorn because he or she is used to. But people who normally don’t buy cinema snacks, are likely to buy our popcorn, especially women who don’t want to buy big buckets of popcorn. Our popcorn is full of flavour and is offered in smaller quantity and made using only the finest all-natural ingredients.
European Business: You have received several Great Taste Awards. What is the most important one to you?
Adam Sopher: The most important award is the one that recognized the taste of our popcorn: The Great Taste Award. It is a UK-based award where the quality of a product is judged. It is an independent panel of 10 people per table. All these people have to say “Yes, this is fantastic” to get one gold star. If you plan to receive more gold stars, another 10 people have to agree. Having them recognized our popcorn as the best tasting one, really is an honour.
"Popcorn is naturally gluten-free and is a great snack for those who are gluten-intolerant." Adam Sopher
European Business: Your popcorn is handmade and holds unusual flavours. How do you create such flavours like Cheese & Onion or Mozzarella & Tomato?
Adam Sopher: All of our flavours are made by hand by our team of pastry chefs using only the finest all natural ingredients. For Cheese and Onion, we use an Irish Cheddar cheese and our freshly air-popped popcorn. For Mozzarella and Tomato, we use mozzarella and fresh tomato. It is very important to us to use natural ingredients. Some of the products are from local suppliers, but it depends on the ingredient we use and need. We put these ingredients through a secret process and create the best popcorn.
European Business: What is your favourite popcorn taste?
Adam Sopher: That’s difficult. It depends on the time of the day and the week. Right now, I love our gingerbread popcorn. When I am in a flavoury mood, I like to eat the French goat´s cheese and black pepper popcorn.
European Business: And what kind of popcorn would you love to create in future?
Adam Sopher: We are always creating new flavours. When I was a child, we had sweets in the UK made form rhubarb and custard and we recently created such a popcorn. We work with really fantastic brands like Marmite. We plan to work with other brands in future to create further flavours and other products as well as launching our popcorn into other countries all over the world.
Interview: Vera Gaidies | Photos: Joe & Seph´s
