Holiday 2009 Happenings!

My apologies for being away from or blog for a few months.
Lots of exciting things going on at POPtions as we approach Christmas and the Holidays.
Once again, our customizable corporate labeling program is getting a great response. For those that are not familiar, we label tin lids with corporate logos and offer personalized gift message cards. Any company, sales rep, etc. just needs to send us a .jpeg of their logo and we'll create a lid label. What better way to say thanks to clients and associates. There's lots more info on our POP to Give corporate program on our website at http://www.poptionspopcorn.com/articles.asp?id=123

Also, of great interest is the launching of three Holiday "flavorites"!
1. Holiday CeleBERRYation!, a delicious combination of caramel corn, dried cranberries and Bissingers dark chocolate!
2. Peppermint Poppy!, peppermint infused Bissingers milk chocolate drizzled on caramel corn and topped with crushed candy cane bits!
3. Cinnamondo! our oh so popular cinnamon popcorn mixed with pecans and topped with Bissingers white chocolate!

Their all yummy and make the perfect gift (or treat for yourself) for the holiday season.

Our New Seasonal Flavorite!-Trick or Treat!

Our regular customers know we always do a seasonal flavor; Valentine's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Holiday and of course, Halloween. We're bringing back (by popular demand) Trick or Trick!, a "flavorite" that we've done the past two Halloween seasons.

We mix candy corn with our caramel corn and top it with Bissinger's Milk Chocolate. It really yummy!

We'll keep you updated on other special/seasonal "flavorites" as we launch them, so stayed tuned!

Today's Press Release Announcing Bissinger Ice Cream

Today, we "officially" announced the launch of Bissinger's Ice Cream, exclusively at POPtions! As readers well know, we've had the ice cream for a couple of months now, but we decided to wait to formally announce it till we had the take home quarts available. We now have Vanilla Bean, Extreme Chocolate and Creme de Menthe Chip available in quart containers, and will have Missouri Black Walnut shortly. Here's the link to the PR release;

http://www.prlog.org/10345998-bissingers-launches-ice-cream-exclusively-at-poptions.html

POPtions Now Has Bissinger's Ice Cream Quarts

We're very excited today, because we just received delivery of Bissinger's Ice Cream in quart containers. Since we started selling Bissinger's Ice Cream in July, many customers were asking for quart containers to take home with them.
We now have Vanilla Bean, Extreme Chocolate, and Creme de Menthe Chip available. Next week, we should get delivery on Missouri Black Walnut and Strawberry Sorbet.
I expect that these will be very popular, as we have the exclusive on Bissinger's Ice Cream-it is not available anywhere else, not even in Bissinger's own stores.

Ladue News profile on POPtions!

I always get a lot of questions about how I came up with the concept of POPtions! I've touched on this in my earlier posts to this blog, and then it occurred to me that the easiest way to answer everyone's questions would be to link you to the interview piece that was published in The Ladue News in 2008.
I hope you will find this informative!

http://www.laduenews.com/articles/2008/04/25/living/wealth/doc4811182d5b335145961609.txt

POPtions in the News

Hey, forgot to post some of the links to TV and radio reviews.
Here you go;

On Show Me St Louis (KSDK)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLnVX-g8dR0

Reviewed on KTRS (550 AM) McGraw Milhaven show by Catherine Neville, editor of Sauce Magazine

http://www.saucemagazine.com/podcasts.php?aid=122

Random Thoughts!

We're very excited about the recent "debut" and addition of Bissinger's Ice Cream to POPtions! For those unfamilar with the Bissingers brand, they're a gourmet chocolatier (over 400 years old) that is based here in St. Louis. They have a number of retail locations (three in the greater St Louis area) and a large catalog and internet business. Their products are to die for, and we've being using their chocolate for all of our chocolate topped popcorn flavors since we opened two years ago.

About four months ago, the Coldstone Creamery store in our strip center (for those who don't know where we are, we're located in The Village at Schneithorst's http://www.poptionspopcorn.com/articles.asp?id=1) closed. I thought adding ice cream would be a real plus for POPtions and add balance to our offerings. I proposed to the president of Bissinger's to think about launching Bissinger's branded ice cream-he was very enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to do it. Our landlord was also in favor.

It took about 3 months for Bissinger's to develop their line of ice cream. They're big on offering all natural products, so it took some work on their part to create a line of flavors that is 100% natural.

We debuted their ice cream at the beginning of July to much success. Flavors are; Vanilla Bean, Extreme Chocolate, Creme de Menthe Chip, Missouri Black Walnut, Raspberry Creme, Strawberry Sorbet, & Espresso Bean. Cups, cones, shakes and sundaes.
Next week we will begin offering for sale quart containers of the ice cream-and the good news for POPtions is that we have the exclusive on the ice cream. It is not available at any other retail outlet at this time. So for all the Bissinger fans (and their are thousands here in St Louis), we'll be the only place in town to get it!

Now that we have the quart containers, we've started marketing it. We're promoting it on KMOX (the #1 radio station in St Louir) and 101 ESPN (the #1 sports radio station). In addition, our print campaign will begin shortly in The Ladue News (a local weekly newspaper catering to the well to do in West County St Louis).

Also, we have begun to promote it on twitter, www.twitter.com/poptionspopcorn

and on facebook www.facebook.com/pages/Ladue-MO/Poptions/80185742622?ref=ts

What Flavors are available at POPtions?

Here's hoping everyone had a chance to see my initial blog yesterday! Can't be sure who is reading about POPtions, but if anyone is, please feel free to email me with your comments and suggestions.

One of the great things about POPtions is the breadth of flavors we offer; 20 flavors daily! As I mentioned yesterday, we feature Bissinger's gourmet chocolate and offer six chocolate topped flavors on a daily basis. Some may ask why use Bissinger's chocolate? Well, when I began formulating my business plan, it occurred to me that our local St. Louis clientele really appreciates premium products, and there is nothing more premium in St. Louis than Bissinger's chocolate. Frankly, the fact that we use Bissinger's chocolate help put us on the map and validated that we offer a true premium product. Needless to say, our chocolate topped flavors have turned out be our most popular.

I'll tell you further about our chocolate flavors, as well as our other sweet, savory, spicy and cheesy flavors in the near future.

As I am writing this at our store, a customer just came in, so got to go!

Thanks for reading and remember you can find us at www.poptionspopcorn.com

Andrew

What is POPtions?

Welcome to the first posting for POPtions. We're coming up on our second anniversary, so I figured it was time start blogging.
You no doubt wonder what POPtions is. We're a gourmet popcorn store located in St. Louis, Missouri (actually, were in the burbs, Ladue). We opened at beginning of September, 2007.

I decided to start my own business, and had three key criteria that I wanted for my business; develop something that was unique and one of a kind in the St. Louis metro area, a business that had an e-commerce platform, and one that would that had multiple revenue channels.

So, after a lot or research, and recalling businesses that I'd seen in my travels, I decided to start a gourmet popcorn store.

Our brick and mortar location is located at 1580 S. Lindbergh Blvd. in St. Louis.
Our website is www.poptionspopcorn.com.
And we specialize in corporate gifting, offering personalized gift tins with corporate logos.

We offer 20 different flavors of popcorn daily; sweet, savory, spicy, cheesy, and Bissinger's chocolate topped popcorn. And we recently added Bissinger's Ice Cream-100% natural-really outstanding ice cream.
For those who are unfamiliar with Bissinger's, there a gourmet chocolatier, based her in St. Louis.

I'll give you more details about POPtions, the history of it's development, and other tidbits in the days and weeks to come.

That's all for now-and thanks for reading!

Andrew