Caramel corn in bulk is two recipes on one sheet: the popcorn and the caramel that coats it, written together as percentages so a batch never ends with caramel and nothing to coat. Pop in a kettle popper, cook the caramel to temperature, coat, cool and break it on a table, and bag it dry: caramel corn takes up moisture from the air and goes sticky in a humid room. Done this way, a popcorn shop that made 4 bags at a time makes about 200 gallon bags in a day, and the cost of a bag falls from $6.09 to $2.26. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the loss, what a bag costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Write popcorn and caramel as one recipe by percentage.
- Pop in a kettle popper and sift out the unpopped kernels.
- Cook the caramel to temperature on a thermometer.
- Coat by the batch, then cool and break on a table.
- Bag it dry and sealed; humidity makes it sticky.
- Weigh what comes out and use your real loss to cost a bag.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Copper Kettle Popcorn, the made-up popcorn shop in Columbus, Ohio, I use in these examples, made caramel corn 3 pounds at a time on the stove before its December gift tins needed thousands of gallons. The recipe, weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 3 lb | One batch, 30 lb | The run, 150 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Popcorn kernels | 36% | 1.08 lb | 10.8 lb | 54.0 lb | $0.80 |
| Brown sugar | 28% | 0.84 lb | 8.40 lb | 42.0 lb | $0.85 |
| Butter | 17% | 0.51 lb | 5.10 lb | 25.5 lb | $3.20 |
| Corn syrup | 15% | 0.45 lb | 4.50 lb | 22.5 lb | $1.20 |
| Coconut oil, for popping | 1.5% | 0.04 lb | 0.45 lb | 2.25 lb | $2.00 |
| Salt | 1.2% | 0.04 lb | 0.36 lb | 1.80 lb | $0.40 |
| Vanilla extract | 0.8% | 0.02 lb | 0.24 lb | 1.20 lb | $25.00 |
| Baking soda | 0.5% | 0.01 lb | 0.15 lb | 0.75 lb | $0.80 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 3 lb | 30 lb | 150 lb |
The 150 pounds cost $223.32 in ingredients; butter is a sixth of the weight and more than a third of the cost. The kernels are cheap and most of the bulk. The gift tins and bags are in how to package popcorn for sale.
The steps, at 150 pounds
- Pop. Kernels popped in coconut oil in a kettle popper, the unpopped kernels sifted out.
- Cook the caramel. Butter, brown sugar, corn syrup and salt cooked to about 250°F on a thermometer, about 30 pounds of finished corn a batch.
- Foam it. Off the heat, vanilla and baking soda stirred in; the soda foams the caramel so it coats thin.
- Coat. Caramel poured over the popcorn in a tumbler or a big bowl and turned until every piece is covered.
- Cool and break. Spread on a cooling table and broken into clusters once it sets.
- Bag dry. Into sealed bags as soon as it's cool, in a dry room.
- Label with a lot code. Every bag carries the day's lot and date.
The run takes about 10.5 hours of labor, popping the next batch while one cools.
What a gallon bag costs at each size
| Per gallon bag | Kitchen batch, 3 lb | Bulk run, 150 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $2.17 (grocery prices) | $1.08 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $0.25 | $0.16 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $3.67 (11 min a gallon bag) | $1.02 (3.1 min a gallon bag) |
| Cost of a gallon bag | $6.09 | $2.26 |
Kernels by the 50-pound bag and butter by the case halve the ingredients, and the labor falls from 11 minutes a bag to about 3. The year is in popcorn business plan, and the steps in more detail in popcorn production process.
Humidity
Caramel corn is mostly sugar, and sugar pulls water out of the air: bagged warm, or left on a table on a humid day, it goes soft and sticky in hours. Run the dehumidifier in the packing room in summer, bag as soon as it's cool, and seal the bags. Handing December to someone else is in popcorn co-packer.
Get the calculator
Download the popcorn scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the batches, table loads, what comes out after the popping and cooking loss, the gallon bags it fills and the cost of each gallon bag; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average popping and cooking loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Caramel, kettle and white cheddar, gift tins filled by the thousand in December, kernels and butter from different deliveries, and a humid week. A sheet can say how much butter a run needs, but not whether there's enough for Friday's tins, or whether the loss crept up when the kernels changed.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with kernels bought by the 50-pound bag and used by the pound, and the cost of every bag comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the kernels, sugar and butter on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of kernels and butter it used, and gets a lot of its own for the bags, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a popping and cooking loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. A batch that went sticky is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Friday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which butter went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real popping and cooking loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| A sticky batch | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.