Popcorn Kitchen

Our mission is to create the best popcorn you'll ever taste' using traditional handmade methods.

We started popping corn in our giant stainless steel kettle at small festivals and food fairs and the feedback we got was so positive we were encouraged to start selling it to a wider audience. We are passionate friendly obsessed with street food and small but with bucket-loads of ambition and exciting growth plans!

About us

Clare has years of experience in the food sector having started her career at Unilever before running a chain of salad bars in London for several years. Following the birth of their son, George, in 2009, Clare chose to 'Escape the City' and set up a mobile catering business that toured the festival scene during the summer months. PJ’s background couldn’t be more different having been involved in IT and then property for many years.

What we share is a love of fantastic food and travel. After discovering ‘kettle corn’ and becoming addicted to the utterly moreish ‘Sweet & Salt variety (that forever solved our dilemma –PJ always wanted salt popcorn and Clare, sweet!) we decided to set-up a mobile popcorn business. PJ spent hours researching kettles and popping methods and eventually in April 2012 we were ready for our first Farmers’ Market in Ripley.

That summer we popped our popcorn at Farmers’ markets, Family festivals and Summer Fairs all over London and the South West. The feedback we got from our customers was amazing and we have an ever-growing collection of quotes from people telling us how much they love our popcorn. After each event we received emails and Facebook posts from people asking where they could buy our popcorn and so at the end of 2012 we started to look at retail packaging.

We launched our ‘retail bags’ at The Good Food Show at the Birmingham NEC in November 2012 and gradually found retailers who were prepared to stock us. Our fans are amazing and often send us suggestions of shops local to them where we should try and get stocked.

We moved production into a proper unit in Woking in March-2 weeks before Clare gave birth to our gorgeous daughter, Molly-Ann. It was a hectic time to say the least!

Since then we have increased our range to 4 flavours, moved into foil packaging which offers better protection for our precious popcorn, attended several trade shows and increased the number of stockists selling our popcorn, who now include Selfridges among many others

We still take our kettle to events and Farmers’ Markets throughout the year as we believe it is essential that we stay in touch with our customers and continue to get their feedback on everything we do. More than anything though it is great fun to be out selling popcorn so fresh it’s still warm and nothing can beat the pleasure we get from seeing someone enjoying eating it!

What can we offer Escapees?

A truly entrepreneurial 'start-up 'business experience.

The opportunity to experience the growth of a brand from start-up to established, recognisable brand.

The chance to shape the strategy and future of our brand.

A really autonomous working environment.

Unkown challenges and adventures every day.

The huge satisfaction that comes with making a big difference.

Great responsibility and great reward.

Do you want to put your years in the corporate world to good use? Know what it is really like to have a marketing budget that actually is tiny? To have to literally 'think out of the box' every day? To know all your customer and suppliers?