When you think of a popcorn factory franchise, does a big Christmas castle at the center of the North Pole, with hundreds of Santa’s little helpers making kettle corn in huge copper vats and chocolate fudge and on a gigantic slab of marble come to mind?! Sorta? A little bit? Maybe not the franchise part, but the big red popcorn factory part, right?!
Del’s Popcorn Shop franchise isn’t located at the North Pole – yet – and we don’t really have hundreds of Santa’s little helpers running around, but throughout the year and especially during the Christmas and holiday gift giving season when people are looking for red gift baskets filled with sweets and treats, the energy that surrounds our popcorn and candy business is contagious as we anticipate the smiles and delight of our customers!
Yes, Del’s Popcorn Shop is way more than just a popcorn store franchise or even a popcorn factory franchise. It’s a magical year-round gift shop filled with nostalgia and sweet, nutty, chocolatey, maple, candy-covered, goodness! (That really does sound like a Christmas castle, you have to give us that!)
Wait, What’s This About Nutty? Del’s Sells Nuts In Gift Baskets?
We’re not a nut factory, but we do sell nut gift baskets. A few of us are a little nuts according to our co-workers, but we’re confident they use that as a term of endearment. Don’t you have to be just a little nutty when you spend much of your day, your week, your year, thinking about popcorn business ideas, which in Del’s case includes everything from maple candy to peanut brittle to nuts!
Check these out! Some of the customer favorites and best sellers include cinnamon and sugar glazed pecans, roasted and salted jumbo cashews and roasted and salted Virginia Redskin Peanuts. Plenty of people who’ve walked through the doors at Del’s have made it a point to tell us Del’s has the best nuts for gifts that they’ve ever tasted.
On his way out, one recent happy customer named Jonathon said about our roasted and salted Spanish Redskin Peanuts, “For a popcorn store franchise these are the best peanuts in Illinois.” He took a few more steps, turned around and added, “Well, not just for a popcorn shop. I think they might just be the best I’ve ever tasted, and I’ve ordered peanuts online from all over.”
We give our founder John Baldwin and name sake, Del Barnett, all the credit for these original and time-honored mixed nut recipes, and we’re glad you like them sir! We’ve added the e-commerce part, and it’s turned out really well for our gift box business! As a popcorn factory franchise owner with Del’s, the good news is customers can buy your products
through our online store too! We bet Jonathon orders soon!
If It Sounds To You Like Starting A Popcorn Store Franchise Is About More Than Just Popcorn, You’re Right!
At least that’s the case with Del’s Popcorn Shop Franchise. Hey wait! One of Santa’s little helpers just came running through the castle with a huge block of vanilla pecan fudge! Sorry, we know our popcorn factory franchise is (a) not a castle and (b) not a factory, it just seems like it when the holiday gift-giving season rolls around! And, we can pretend, can’t we!
We promise if you become the owner of our popcorn store franchise, you’ll pretend too. Bet we catch you wearing a Santa’s hat the day after Thanksgiving! Jumping into the popcorn business will do that to you. Let’s shake on it.
Anyway, that brings up a good point. A delicious point actually. Fudge. Fudge as gifts. Fudge as presents. Fudge as thank you’s. Fudge as a get well. Fudge as a treat on Tuesdays when nobody’s looking. We’ve got fudge!
Our customers tell us that sometimes they just have to have something rich and decadent. At Del’s, we have taken fudge to a new level of epicurean delight by making it in small batches with real milk and butter. Rich. Decadent.
From our traditional chocolate fudge stirred in a copper kettle and then whipped by hand on a giant marble slab, to Del’s popular peanut butter fudge and maple pecan fudge made in the same traditional manner, once again, Del’s proves that we’re not just meant to be a popcorn factory franchise or a gourmet popcorn franchise. We like to spread your options for goodness around a bit!
Nuts And Fudge And Gifts Of Good Taste, Oh My!
What in the world is a gift of good taste you ask? Such a timely and important question on your quest to possibly become the next Del’s Popcorn Shop franchise owner!
If you’ve read a little about Del’s history (link to past blog), you probably remember that our popcorn gift box business began to flourish in the mid 1980s, as new owner, Lou Ann Jacobs, started experimenting with popcorn for corporate gifts as well as popcorn and candy gift boxes for holidays and special occasions.
That new revenue stream took off, and today, thanks to Lou Ann’s brilliant popcorn business idea, Del’s is known for our oh-so-satisfying Gifts of Good Taste!
We wouldn’t be considered a gift company if we didn’t have the 2 Gallon Del’s Popcorn Sampler, because sometimes you just have to have 2 gallons of cheese popcorn, caramel corn and seasoned popcorn all under one little tin can roof! And we do have a 1 gallon popcorn sampler, in case you’re wondering.
Del’s Signature Gift Box, which is one of our best selling gift boxes, is a delicious mixture of caramel corn, small kettle korn, cheese corn, vanilla candy corn, milk chocolate popcorn and Del’s Deluxe Popcorn. The elves have such a blast making these. (Sorry, couldn’t resist. We’re not a castle at the North Pole, we’re a gourmet popcorn franchise and more, with a bunch of other goodies that just makes us think we have elves on our team! That sounds right.)
Back to some of the best gift boxes you’ll ever find. We created a Happy Birthday Candles Gables Box and a Get Well Soon Band-aids Small Gift Basket Box, because you know, sometimes a kid gets a new bike for their birthday and then falls in the driveway and scrapes a knee, needing a little something to make them feel better. Not really why we created those, but you see what we did there. Not a terrible birthday gift strategy for a kid who loves popcorn though!
Does Del’s Offer Other Holiday Gift Baskets Or Is It Only Christmas Gift Baskets?
Just down the hall past the room where our elves get their pointy-tipped shoes is our season gift idea room (Oh. My. Gosh. We did it again, sorry). Ok, Del’s, as the well-oiled popcorn factory franchise that we are, truly is always dreaming and planning for seasonal gift basket ideas and opportunities.
Can you say chocolate covered strawberries? Our handmade Valentine’s Day desserts are offered as a half-pound or one pound, and we make them within a couple of hours of a customer’s requested pick-up or delivery time.
We offer cute and delicious, life-sized popcorn bunnies as a special Easter gift along with over a dozen other spring popcorn and candy gift baskets!
No, we’re not a Christmas Castle with Santa’s little helpers. And, you can’t just call us a popcorn factory franchise. But, at least once a year, we get in that holiday spirit and have so much fun talking about our holiday gift baskets and Christmas gift boxes to shoppers. The good news is, as you may have discovered by now, Del’s Popcorn Shop is so much more than a popcorn store franchise, and we’ve got the rest of the year covered too!
