Robin Garrison says the popcorn industry lends itself to puns, slogans and catch phrases, like "Pop on over."
That wasn't easy to do the day after a snowstorm, and Garrison's two employees at Popsations Popcorn Co., a gourmet popcorn business in Timonium, both called in with car trouble. But Garrison, 46, of Towson, made it into work early Friday morning at her combination retail store and commercial kitchen.
"I'm by myself today," she said, smiling and wearing a red apron with the name Popsations and its slogan: "Simple ingredients. Simply delicious. Simply Popsational."
Garrison said business is best around holidays and special dates. On Friday, she was preparing for a personal favorite, National Popcorn Day, which pops up on the second Thursday in March, this year March 12, according to its sponsor, The Popcorn Board, based in Chicago, Ill. (The Popcorn Board also promotes National Popcorn Day on Jan. 19).
According to The Popcorn Board, Americans eat about 16 billion quarts of popcorn a year, or 51 quarts per man, woman and child.
Any excuse to celebrate is fine with Garrison, who said she will be giving away bags of popcorn with purchases of $10 or more at her shop on National Popcorn Lovers Day.
Garrison, previously a stay-at-home mother of two young children, started Popsations in 2011 in Suite Q of a warehouse building at 7 Aylesbury Road, behind the Lutherville Station Shopping Center.
"It was just an empty space," she said. "We put in a commercial kitchen and the rest is history."
Although Garrison runs the business and says it was a dream many years in the making, it's also something of a family affair. She said she started it when her children reached school age, and with the support of her husband, Mike, and other family members.
"My mother does a lot of the labeling and ribbons" on the bags, she said.
Although business is most brisk in the fall and at Christmas time, Garrison has built it into a six-figures-a-year financial success story. Popsations sells homemade caramel popcorn — with or without chocolate drizzle — as well as cheddar cheese popcorn and a new concoction called Crabby Caramel, which is flavored slightly with Old Bay seasoning.
"My husband said I was crazy when I said we're going to try it, but it's taken off," Garrison said. "People really love it."
The popcorn is packaged not only in bags with ribbons, but in fancy tins, some of them with themed to Maryland, the Ravens and the Orioles. Popsations caters to weddings, new parents, birthday parties and corporate events, and can customize its packaging labels accordingly, like "It's A Girl" for a newborn announcement, or the names of newlyweds or the company hosting a gathering.
Depending on the packaging and the flavor, popcorn prices range from $5 for a four-ounce bag to $22 for a one-gallon tin and $96 for a 6.5-gallon tin. Garrison said someone came in recently to buy the large tin for a baby shower for a pregnant woman.
"She was ready to pop," Garrison quipped.
Garrison estimated that about 60 percent of her business is wholesale. She said her popcorn products are in about 35 stores, as far away as the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay hotel in Cambridge on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Locally, her popcorn is for sale at Graul's Market in Ruxton, Radebaugh's florist in Towson, Baltimore Coffee and Tea Co. (located in the same parking lot as Popsations), and the Eddie's of Roland Park grocery stores on North Charles.
The other 40 percent of Popsation's business is online at http://www.popsationspopcorn.com.
"We ship all over the country," Garrison said.
She also does special events, including manning a booth at the Kennedy Krieger Institute's annual Festival of Trees.
Garrison runs a compact operation in her 3,000-square-foot rented space. Beyond the retail store, which takes up only about 200 square feet, is a spick-and-span kitchen with equipment such as a C. Cretors & Co. FT40 air-popping machine, named for the 19th-century commercial popping machine inventor Charles Cretors. Garrison buys more than 5,000 pounds of kernels a year of so-called "mushroom" popcorn kernels from Reist Popcorn Co., in Lancaster, Pa., which she said pop rounder, are better for coating with caramel, and don't break as easily as "butterfly" popcorn, which come out more splayed. Her popcorn is also gluten-free, she said.
Once popped, the popcorn is added to caramel sauce that is cooked in a large copper pot. The coated popcorn then is placed on a special table, where it cools and hardens. Garrison gave a demonstration in which she drizzled high-end Guittard chocolate over several trays of popcorn and placed the trays on a baker's rack to be packaged into bags or tins. The tins come from a can company in Belkamp, in Harford County.
Garrison said she doesn't have many gourmet popcorn competitors in the area, although Jeppi Nut and Candy Co., which sells popcorn among other products, is located in the same parking lot on Aylesbury Road.
As Popsations grows, Garrison is looking to expand and open a bigger retail store, somewhere with more foot traffic and possibly as far away as downtown Baltimore or Hunt Valley. She said she would stay in the current location as a commercial kitchen, however.
She is also trying out new flavors.
"We did a chipotle popcorn," she said. "We just haven't gotten it to market yet."
And she is thinking about trying to sell her popcorn at movie theaters, among other ideas.
The problem, she said, "is just getting to everything."