Oprah Chooses Kosher ‘Popinsanity’ Popcorn As One Of Her ‘Favorite Things’
One of the hardest things about creating a kosher food is the difficulty of it crossing over into the mainstream and achieving the national and not-just-Jewish appeal a food needs to remain on the market. But with Oprah’s help, that’s not kosher artisanal popcorn company Popinsanity’s problem anymore. The Airmont, New York-based company was founded by Aaron Zutler and Jacob Goldenthal.
Popinsanity caught Oprah’s eye at a trade show, after a chance encounter with a staffer, according to News12. But an $180 tin of gourmet popcorn isn’t for everyone, to be sure, and the backlash is already happening, with a Quartz article calling it “the world’s most tragic gift.”
The power of Oprah’s favorite holiday things list is one that economists can chart, calling it “The Oprah effect,” in which a product’s popularity explodes after making it onto Oprah’s list. After endorsing the Amazon Kindle, the product sold out in a few hours. When Oprah announced she owned a LightWedge book light, sales of LightWedge book lights increased from $3,700 to $90,000 in a single afternoon. Cake designing company We Take The Cake made $19 in 2004. By the end of 2005, after receiving Oprah’s approval, sales were up $840,000. Popinsanity has been selling 10,000 pounds of popcorn a week to 24 states, but Zutler and Goldenthal should gear up to start selling a lot more.
Shira Feder is a writer. She’s at feder@forward.com and @shirafeder
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO