Today they’re household names, but it started with a leap of faith:“The mashgiach thought he was going to a factory, but there was the popper, on the kitchen table in our small apartment"
t was 1980, and I had recently left kollel and was working as a programmer. I was employed by another Yid from Lakewood, and we were working on software for a university near Princeton, NJ. One afternoon, my boss walked into my office holding a school magazine (there were a lot of those around, since we worked for the education sector). He was reading an article about the benefits of owning a popcorn machine and selling the snack in the school canteen. “Ephraim,” he quipped, “how would you like to go into the popcorn business?”
He was joking, but nevertheless, the idea had been planted in my head. Popcorn! I thought it over and spoke to my wife that night. We both started laughing.
At that time, kosher snacks were available, but simpler and not in such abundance as today. Potato chips, pretzels, and one brand of popcorn — packaged in a plain plastic bag — were selling in Lakewood then, but there seemed to be a gap in the market. So the next morning I started to do my homework and figure out what was involved in producing popcorn as a commercially packaged snack.
Research took a lot longer in those pre-Internet days. It was slow and tedious, involving dozens of phone calls and faxes to suppliers and discussions with the hashgachah. After lots of legwork, I ordered some plastic bags, printed labels on my office computer, and called a mashgiach down from Brooklyn, as there was no Lakewood-based hashgachah at the time. I gave them the address, and a young rav came in. He thought he was going to a factory, but there was the popper, on the kitchen table in our small apartment. He laughed and wished us “zohl zein mit mazel un hatzlachah,” checked the ingredients and the process, and we started our first run.
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