Boxoffice-December.02.1950
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A Handy Checklist for<br />
Merchandising Popcorn<br />
• Clean the popping machine doily, inside and<br />
out. Have it spotless, especiolly the gloss<br />
and kettle. Use the kettle cleaning kit ond<br />
follow the directions.<br />
• Hove all supplies at the machine when you<br />
stort the doy.<br />
• To begin popping operotion, first put two<br />
and one-holf ounces of seosoning into the<br />
kettle. Then turn on the kettle switch.<br />
• Lift the kettle lid. When a slight smoke<br />
orises and seems to curl bock under the lid,<br />
turn on the motor ond blower.<br />
• Take o gloss of row corn, with solt added,<br />
and dump immediately into the kettle.<br />
• Quickly refill gloss with corn and add salt.<br />
• Corn should pop out in lorge floky groins.<br />
When it pops out in small groins, adjust the<br />
thermostat to o higher or lower temperature<br />
until the largest grains are obtained.<br />
• When all the corn has popped, dump the<br />
kettle, and refill with seasoning, corn and<br />
salt.<br />
• After popping several kettles of corn, stort<br />
filling<br />
boxes.<br />
• In filling the lock-bottom popcorn box, put<br />
enough corn into the box so that when the<br />
top flaps ore closed, the corn will force the<br />
lock-bottom even.<br />
SALES<br />
TECHNIQUES<br />
By "suggestive selling" we do not<br />
mean "forced sales." However, items<br />
Tnay be suggested when the patron<br />
seems undecided as to what to buy.<br />
Also "new" items may be brought to<br />
the attention of the customer with the<br />
suggestion that he try "this luscious<br />
new candy bar that just came in."<br />
We have ten-cent and 25-cent popcorn<br />
boxes and only through suggestive selling<br />
can 25-cent box sales amount to an appreciable<br />
part of your popcorn business.<br />
When a patron asks for popcorn, the candy<br />
girl should respond with "large or small?"<br />
Do not allow your candy girl to say "10-<br />
cent or 2i5-cent box?" This not only makes<br />
the customer price conscious but at times<br />
may prove embarrassing to him.<br />
Children are the most important segment<br />
to the candy bar purchasing public.<br />
Never make the mistake of palming off<br />
slow-moving items on children. It isn't<br />
fair. Of course, usually you can't anyway.<br />
Kids learn brand names and have<br />
a definite brand preference at an early<br />
age. A recent survey of boys and girls<br />
from 14 to 16 showed that 97.7 per cent<br />
had a favorite brand of candy bar.<br />
• Keep severol boxes in the mochine reody to<br />
sell at oil times, more if business justifies,<br />
and hove a mound of unboxed popcorn for<br />
disploy.<br />
• Keep the mochine running os much as passible<br />
but don't pop too for oheod. This<br />
should be governed by the flow of troffic by<br />
your boxoffice. Alwoys hove enough popped<br />
corn on bond. Patrons will not wait for you<br />
to pop it. On midnight shows, onticipote your<br />
entire needs and hove it popped, and nearly<br />
oil of it boxed, when your boxoffice opens.<br />
• Don't run out of supplies. Keep your inventory<br />
at least two weeks oheod ot all times.<br />
• Never leave the kettle switch on when not<br />
popping. Never use the thermostat for turning<br />
off the kettle.<br />
• Never put the kettle in water. You may pour<br />
water into the kettle.<br />
• After every popping, wipe off the kettle lid,<br />
glass, and top of the inside of the mochine.<br />
• Every time you turn off the kettle switch be<br />
sure to put two and one-half ounces of seasoning<br />
in the kettle and leave it there while<br />
the kettle cools off. This will prevent the<br />
heating element from burning out and also<br />
prevents additional residue from baking into<br />
the<br />
kettle.<br />
We have very definitely found, by experiment,<br />
that half-pound and pound box<br />
candies do not sell in our theatres. As a<br />
matter of fact, any items over 25 cents or<br />
2o cents are loss items with us and consequently<br />
should not be carried in stock.<br />
At this point let me tell you, and<br />
very definitely, that we are not in<br />
competition with any store or stores<br />
outside our theatres. We have proved<br />
this most conclusively. The selling of<br />
candies a7id popcorn in theatres has<br />
tremendously iricreased the Tiational<br />
sales of these items. A very interesting<br />
fact is that one-third of all the<br />
five and ten-cent candy bar business<br />
done in the United States is done<br />
through theatres, which have only tiuo<br />
per cent of the total outlets.<br />
It is most important that all popcorn,<br />
after it has been dumped from the kettle,<br />
is brushed across the corn screen with a<br />
side-to-side motion using the popcorn<br />
scoop. This filters out all unpopped corn<br />
and small kernels that are only half<br />
popped.<br />
Failure to do this can very definitely affect<br />
popcorn sales. The extreme danger<br />
of allowing these unpopped or partially<br />
popped grains of corn to reach the patron<br />
may result in a broken tooth.<br />
ORDERING OF POPCORN, SEASONING<br />
AND SALT<br />
Popcorn should be ordered in amounts<br />
of four, five, eight and ten one-hundredpound<br />
bags per order, depending upon the<br />
amount of popcorn business your theatre<br />
is doing. Ti-y and keep four weeks' stock<br />
on hand.<br />
Seasoning should be ordered in lots of<br />
five cases per order. Shipments of five<br />
cases or more are sent prepaid. Popcorn<br />
salt comes in cases of 24 boxes and should<br />
be ordered one or two cases per order, as<br />
needed.<br />
STORING<br />
POPCORN<br />
All popcorn should be stored in a dry<br />
place. When each hundred-pound bag<br />
is received, the corn should be left in<br />
the moisture proof bag and it then<br />
should be placed in a separate garbage<br />
can with the lid on to keep the mice<br />
from getting into the corn. Keep in<br />
mind that popcorn is food and must<br />
be protected at all times.<br />
A five-gallon can of raw corn should be<br />
kept with your machine to take care of<br />
your daily needs.<br />
POPCORN BAG YIELD<br />
The best popcorn is not necessarily the<br />
cheapest popcorn but rather that which<br />
yields the greatest amount of money from<br />
the sale of a one-hundred-pound bag. In<br />
other words, it isn't so important what we<br />
pay for the corn as it is how much we<br />
get out of it. Below is a popcorn bag<br />
yield table which I have worked out to<br />
spot check your corn. Your bag yield<br />
should run better than $140 per bag with<br />
the quality corn we are now getting.<br />
POPCORN BAG YIELD TABLE<br />
BOXES FILLED APPROXIMATE<br />
BAG YIELD<br />
9 $120.00<br />
9'/4 123.30<br />
VA 126.60<br />
934 130.00<br />
10 133.30<br />
10 '/4 136.60<br />
10 '/2 140.00<br />
10% 143.30<br />
11 146.60<br />
nVi 150.00<br />
11 '/2 153.30<br />
11 % 1 56.00<br />
12 160.00<br />
From 12 ounces of row corn the number of oneand-o-half-ounce<br />
boxes which con be filled is<br />
shown in the left bond column.<br />
The right bond column shows the dollar yield for<br />
eoch hundred-pound bog ot this rate.<br />
t Continued on following page)<br />
BOXOFFICE December 2, 1950 11
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