KATHMANDU, May 214: About a few years ago, popcorn was available in Kathmandu in movie theaters only. On January 22, 2018, when Wow Popcorn hit Kathmandu through the efforts of Subhakar Manandhar, it became more easily available in the Nepali markets.
Wow Popcorn is produced in the factory of Kraft Food Pvt Ltd situated in the Balaju industrial area in Kathmandu. Kraft Food, which Manandhar owns as a family business, used to import food items since 2009.
He had opened two outlets initially, and later expanded to 22 outlets in Kathmandu within four months. Each outlet contains a warmer which maintains the hotness and freshness of the popcorn.
“Previously I was not sure that Wow Popcorn will gain such popularity. We started with just two outlets in Durbarmarg and Ranjana Trade Center,” Manandhar said. “The concept of popcorn business hit my mind in 2017, when my daughter asked for cheese popcorn at home but it was available only in the movie theaters. Then I realized that there is a huge demand of popcorn among youngsters.”
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Manandhar then brought machines and equipment required for the production of popcorn, and imported ingredients like seasoning, raw corn and flavors. For more than seven months, he experimented with the flavor to make it suitable for Nepal.
“Within a week of opening the two outlets, we received ten requests to establish outlets in other parts of the valley. We are adding five more within this month,” he informed. Wow Popcorn is also looking forward to expanding outside the valley.
“This is the first popcorn brand of Nepal, and we are getting good response from the consumers. We are getting lots of requests from various districts to open outlets. We are about to establish one in Pokhara soon,” he added.
Apart from retail sales from outlets, Wow Popcorn also produces commercial packets and sells them at grocery stores. Both types have received a positive response from the market. The sale per month reaches up to 200,000 packets. There are three different flavors: butter-salt, cheese and caramel popcorn. Butter-salt and cheese are made of butterfly corn and are sold for 20 rupees, whereas caramel popcorns are made of mushroom corns and cost 50 rupees per packet. Caramel and caramel-cheese flavored popcorns are available in outlets, costing Rs 100 per 100 gram.
All ingredients necessary for the production of popcorn are imported by Kraft Food Pvt Ltd. Seasonings are imported from India, mushroom corns from the US, and butterfly corns from Brazil, South Korea, and Argentina. All machines required for the production are imported from the US.
When asked why Wow Popcorn is not using local corn, Manandhar said: “You might think that popcorn and ‘murali makai’ (a local corn breed) are similar. But there is a huge difference – popcorn obtained from local corn is just baked corn as the head of the corn remains in it, but with our breeds the corn pops evenly.”
Kraft Food Pvt Ltd has the capacity of producing one ton of corn per month. “Our target is to sell five tons of corn in one month by opening maximum outlets across the country,” said Manandhar. “It’s really hard to maintain the quality of popcorn as even a small exposure can damage the quality. So we monitor our outlets on a regular basis to make sure that they are following our protocols.”
Wow Popcorn also delivers popcorns to weddings and birthday parties if the order is more than four kilograms. The company is also planning to introduce potato chips in the next three months.
