Steve Dale believes he’s developed a better mouse trap – specifically, a better kind of popcorn – and that it’s just a matter of time before the world beats a path to his door for more, reports The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Many retailers, boutiques, novelty shops and coffee houses already are selling Bentley’s Premier Popcorn, he says.
After just a few years in business, the 59-year-old Peachtree City man says he’s shipping up to 10,000 bags of corn daily, at $2 to $3 a pop, from his distribution plant in Fayetteville, which employs eight people full-time.
A serial entrepreneur who made a fortune selling fancy cars to sheiks in the Middle East before striking gold in the garbage business in Georgia, Dale is convinced he’s found just the right recipes to turn Bentley’s into a household name.
How did you get into popcorn?
A: I wanted a business that wouldn’t make me reliant on others. I wanted to create something I could manage and control. [He notes that popcorn is the No. 1 snack food in the world, and Americans eat 1 billion pounds a year. Ready-to-eat popcorn has become a multibillion-dollar market worldwide.]
OK, so what’s next?
A: We studied the industry, everything about it. Knowledge is power. It didn’t take long to decide it would be a fun business. We made arrangements with a popcorn manufacturing plant in Lexington, S.C., to use its facility. I studied formulas and recipes. I spent tens of thousands of dollars running sample productions. I read about flavor profiles. It was trial and error until I came up with some I liked. I had a test kitchen in 2005.
You make it sound easy.
A: It wasn’t. I didn’t like the taste at first. But every time I manufactured a new batch [with different ingredients], I saved some of it, dated it, wrote down the formula. Nothing. Then one day I went into the warehouse, opened a bag, and noticed it had a wonderful aroma. I took a kernel or two, and it was wonderful. I didn’t know why, until I learned that what I’d tasted was 30 days old. It takes that long to develop its flavor profile. It’s like a fine wine. It gets better with age.
Photo by Bentley’s Popcorn, Inc..