By Janet Weyandt
In the beginning, the founders of Palo Popcorn were popping just enough corn to supply Sheboygan County’s corner taverns with their signature salty snacks.
That was 1963, when siblings Pat and Larry Ott were manning the poppers.
Fast-forward 59 years and the company, whose moniker remains a mashup of its founders’ names, has become a staple nationwide and is carried in grocery, convenience and liquor stores as well as gourmet food shops from coast to coast.
The magic really happened in 2014, says Vice President of Sales Matt Haas, when the company was featured in a promotion for a retailer that owns stores in 15 states. Response to that campaign resulted in Palo Popcorn expanding into retail stores in 30 states from the Upper Midwest to Florida and New York.
“We are always pursuing additional distribution with new retailers across the country,” Haas says.
Palo Popcorn is produced in the company’s Sheboygan Falls facility and has a total of 15 employees. The company changed hands several times after it was founded, most recently in 2011 when it was purchased by current owners Jim and June Chisholm.
Haas says the company is always assessing its product line to identify new flavors to feature, and today’s lineup includes salted original, bacon cheddar, jalapeno cheddar, white cheddar, premium cheddar, ranch and white cheddar, movie theater butter, hot cheddar, white cheddar maple bacon, Mexican street corn and caramel corn.
“We launched a movie theater butter flavor last year, which has become very popular and our second-best-selling item, and we also introduced a caramel corn for the 2021 holiday season,” Haas says. “Our flavor portfolio is quite extensive, and at this point we are focused on continued growth of the company. But we will evaluate additional flavors if we recognize emerging trends.”
