Boulder Food Culture: Quinn Popcorn is Popping Up Healthier Snacks | Your Boulder (2024)

• Kelly Tidd
• April 7, 2014
• Boulder Business

Boulder food culture is amazing. So what do you need to know about Quinn Popcorn in Boulder? Everything.

Kristy loves popcorn. It was one of her favorite easy-to-make healthy snacks. But when her doctor told her to avoid it during her pregnancy due to the synthetic and potentially harmful ingredients in the chemical laden bag (not to mention the popcorn itself), she was heartbroken and set out on a mission to make microwaveable popcorn as healthy as it should be.

Kristy and her husband, Coulter, beganQuinn Popcorn in 2010 in the attic right after Kristy gave birth to their son, Quinn (now you now where the name comes from). Kristy began reaching out to organic farmers and non-GMO food producers in order to create popcorn that was truly all natural.

Coulter, with a background in engineering, began to work on a microwave bag that didn’t have any chemical coatings, so that it was entirely safe to pop those tasty little kernels.

It took the couple about a year of trial and error to get the formula right, but when they did, they took it to the best place for a small startup company with a great product: Kickstarter.

With fingers crossed and their first batch of popcorn in production already, the couple launched the Kickstarter campaign for Quinn Popcorn and hoped for the best.

They certainly were not disappointed. In just 30 days, the couple raised over $28,000; much more than their initial goal of $10,000. With that kind of response, it’s fairly obvious that the world was ready for some better popcorn.

Instead of just offering just everyday, run-of-the-mill popcorn, Quinn Popcorn offers a handful of mouth-watering flavors the likes of which people have never had from a microwaveable bag. Flavors like Vermont Maple and Sea Salt, Hickory Smoked Cheddar, Rosemary and Parmesan and more offer popcorn fans a savory variety of options to keep those taste buds interested.

But Quinn didn’t start in Boulder. The advanced and forward-thinking Boulder food culture earned Quinn Popcorn’s presence. As the couple describes it, a move to our fair city was the missing piece to their startup puzzle. Originally conceived in Boston, the family and the existing Quinn team picked up and moved to Boulder. The company credits supportive, like-minded food startups in the area, such as Justin’s Nut Butter and Evol, for being the inspiration to move to a warehouse 2,000 miles across the country.

If you think this is only something you can find online, think again! Quinn Popcorn is already on the shelves of several stores in the Boulder area including Natural Grocers, Whole Foods (Pearl, Baseline, and Ideal Market locations), Lolita’s, Peppercorn, Alfalfa’s, and through Mile High Organics.

Now that there’s an all-natural, Boulder-based alternative to microwave popcorn, I’m sure you’re ready to say buh-bye to Mr. Redenbacher and hello to Quinn.

• Tagged With:Boulder Business, Boulder Startup