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Business is popping at specialty store in Girard
By SARAH Lehr
GIRARD
When Melanie Ritchie pops popcorn, she opens the doors and turns on the fans at her downtown storefront.
Like clockwork, people who are nearby will arrive at the business to investigate the heavenly smell.
Ritchie, a Niles resident, opened Karma Korn Poppery at 32 W. Liberty St. on May 10.
After working for 15 years at a dental office, Ritchie wanted to go into business for herself. She and her boyfriend loved to travel to gourmet popcorn stores, so the namesake product seemed like a natural fit.
At any given time, the store offers about 40 varieties of popcorn, which are organized into either sweet or savory flavors.
Most of the popcorn is gluten-free, and each bag is $5.
Though Karma Korn Poppery offers classics such as cheddar and caramel, it also caters to more unusual tastes with options including dill pickle, pizza and loaded potato. The most-popular item is the rainbow popcorn, which is a hodgepodge of all the store’s fruity flavors.
“That’s what every kid wants,” Ritchie said.
Ritchie’s own children love to experiment with popcorn flavors and are not shy about adding hot sauce to their batches.
The store purchases its kernels from a supplier in Norton. Ritchie said those kernels produce larger and more-uniform pieces of popcorn.
Ritchie uses an industrial-strength popper, which pops 650 servings an hour, and then adds candy coating using a cooker that can handle 5 gallons of popcorn at a time.
Next comes the cooling, which Ritchie noted is the trickiest part of the process, since the popcorn is sensitive to humidity among other factors.
For Ritchie, the store is the fulfillment of a dream. She said the business’s rustic decor, which includes a bread box and her grandparents’ first kitchen table, is intended to create a homey atmosphere.
“I wanted it to look like an old country store,” Ritchie said.
Karma Korn Poppery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.