A FEW THINGS ABOUT PANDEMIC POPCORN

Popcorn sellers usually rely on blockbuster summer films and Academy Award aspirants over the winter.

Major League Baseball draws popcorn noshers to ballparks while festivaland fair-goers crave kettle corn. As the pandemic shut down movie theatres, sporting events, fairs and concerts — along went popcorn sales. Microwave popcorn, meanwhile, has seen double-digit growth since March as families have sheltered in place. Think about it: How much popcorn did your family consume watching Schitt's Creek sweep the Emmys?

1 SUCH A VARIETY

There are two types of corn: Field corn, which is used for animal feed, oils and ethanol; and sweet corn, for people food, including popcorn. And within the popcorn sector, there are various types: There is butterfly popcorn with fluffy big flakes that mostly

goes to movie theatres, the mushroom variety that makes a really round kernel perfect for caramel corn. There is a “miracle mushroom” variety prized by kettle-corn producers and a kind of butterfly corn better suited to being tumbled in a cheesy coating. The big butterfly flakes are usually reserved for movie theatres — those big kernels fill up the tubs quicker — so typically are not directly available to consumers.

2 HIT THE BACK FORTY!

Generally, there are about 96 million acres in the U.S. planted in dent corn, compared with about 300,000 acres of popcorn. Popcorn, one of the oldest types of corn, found even in Mayan temple ruins, is harvested at the end of September, once the kernels are dry on the stalks — that means

virtually any day now.

3 GOTTA MOVE IT OUT

Stored corn will last about a year, but after that it's too dry: What makes popcorn pop is an internal moisture level of 13.5 per cent, stored inside a circle of soft

starch.

4 EIGHTY MILLION MOVIES!

One of the largest suppliers of movie theatre popcorn, Preferred Popcorn, was started 22 years ago by five Nebraska farmers. Preferred has installed seven new silos to hold excess product, which will hold about 16 million pounds of popcorn kernels. Each pound of kernels will produce about five 130-ounce

tubs — those are the jumbo buckets beloved by U.S. moviegoers — so the excess kernels stored in these seven bins would provide roughly 80 million

tubs of popcorn.