Business
Emily’s Taking on Food Titans
PopCornaa (love that name) was started by Emily Tse and operates out of Balthane Industrial Estate.
A business that started as an idea during lockdown has been nominated for a major food award up against a titan of the industry.
PopCornaa (love that name) was started by Emily Tse and operates out of Balthane Industrial Estate.
Emily told Gef how she began making her own popcorn simply because her boys love it and coming from a family which ran food suppliers, she had the skills and time to craft something brilliant during the Covid pandemic.
The concept behind Emily’s business is to create amazing flavours of popcorn with provenance in mind. Made by hand, the company does flavours including: strawberries and cream, chocolate orange, chocolate mint, caramel, chocolate, and the extra special Asian mango caramel, which is the first to launch in the Asian Burst range inspired by her extensive travels and love of culinary adventures.
The mango caramel flavour is the one shortlisted as a finalist for the Quality Food Awards in the Chocolate and Confectionary category of ‘All Year Round’ category, which will put her Manx creation up against Euro Shopper and two of Aldi’s range, Chocolate entrants. The results will be announce in November at the Award Ceremony in London.
Emily said: ‘I’m using fresh fruit powders. So you can really taste the fruit that comes through. I wanted to take away the kind of artificial flavourings and preservatives and all the nasties, and so that really is what sets us apart from the commercial brands.
‘I think you can really taste the difference because we use local Manx butter as well.’
Using as much local produce as possible is important to Emily as she strongly believes that reducing food miles and using quality local ingredients both provides an amazing product, but also is what global consumers want after a tumultuous few years with the pandemic and a broken supply chain.
Outside the Isle of Man the world awaits and Emily, through her experience of the family food empire, knows how to sell products into other markets and is looking to export to the UK and EU and to help ‘put the island on the map for quality food producers’.
All in a Name
Besides the popcorn, which really is amazing, what I love is the name. PopCornaa, it’s just brilliant! So I had to ask whether it was inspired by the stunning Manx beach or whether it was just a name? Safe to say, I wasn’t disappointed with the answer when Emily confirmed it was
Emily said: ‘We were there because a friend asked if I’d been, we went with the kids and that’s where it came from. Ideally we would have loved to have a production kitchen there. Unfortunately, there aren’t many options as such, and so we’ve ended up here in Balthane.’
Moving forward, Emily hopes to begin employing people to help with the business, which she is currently running by herself and also has plans for a savoury and vegan range which is currently in development.
You can buy Popcornaa in a number of stores locally including Presence of Mann, Mostly Manx, The Manx Tartan Shop, The Fyn Bar, Tynwald Mills Deli, Truffle Struffyl, Ballacregga Corn Mill and Tea Rooms, The Good Health Store, the Dovecote Tearooms and Woodbourne Deli, with more exciting collaborations and announcements in the coming weeks.
Finally, good luck Emily!
Let us Know
In recent weeks we have featured pubs coming back to life and a new potato shop in Douglas. But we have also covered the closure of some great businesses.
If you or your business has done something brilliant, let us know about it, email hello@gef.im and if you’re a local producer, even better, we love nothing more than chatting to people who are dedicated to what they do and the produce they make.
