Popcorn brand selection

I tried to select only widely-distributed brands in order to give the largest audience possible an idea of which brand pops the most kernels, and pops them the best. There were lots of variations available within each brand, such as "caramel", "light", "pour-over butter", etc...

I settled on "butter" flavor for the test. While this may not be what you or I always buy, I felt like it was the most reliable flavor and was sure to be offered by all major brands, which it was.

The actual test

(experiment methodology + data)

Brand
Newman's Own
Pop Secret
Jolly Time
Best Choice
Act II
Orville Redenbacker
Price/Bag
$1.13
$0.95
$0.71
$0.56
$0.33
$0.95
Labeled Weight (oz)
3.5
3.5
3
3.5
3.3
3.3
Labeled Serving Size (grams)
30
36
34
33
35
35
Labeled Servings/Bag
3
3
2.5
3
2.5
2.5
Actual Servings/Bag
2.9
2.2
2.0
1.8
2.0
1.8
Un-popped Kernels (grams)
3
7
14
7
6
7
Popped Kernels (grams)
86
78
67
58
69
63
Percentage of Kernels Popped
97%
91%
79%
88%
91%
89%
Price/Popped Kernel Gram
$0.013
$0.012
$0.011
$0.010
$0.005
$0.015

I popped each bag for the same amount of time in the same microwave all within the same 30 minutes. (Cook time was "until 3 second between pops.") After which, I emptied the bag onto a cookie sheet and sorted out the popped kernels (white and fluffy) from the un-popped kernels (yellow and tooth-shatteringly hard). Then I weighed each part, and recorded my results.

Before tossing out the popped kernels, I set a small portion aside and labeled it with an anonymous control letter; A... B... C... and so-forth. This was so I could conduct a blind taste test involving my wife, sister and brother-in-law. We did the taste test about an hour after all the corn had been popped. This was an attempt to normalize temperature across brands to eliminate the fresh-popped-corn advantage.

That's the raw data up there. You can download a version of this table as a MIcrosoft Excel (.xls) file. That way you can make a graph or manipulate the data in some other way, if you want.

Download Popcorn Test Raw data (.xls file)

Materials

If you care to replicate my popcorn experiment, here's what you'll (probably) need.

  • Un-popped packages of microwave popcorn
  • Microwave oven
  • Food scale
  • Large cookie tray for sorting
  • Large container for holding popcorn while weighing
  • Set of identical bowls for taste testing
  • Method of recoding data (I used a laptop combined with a nearby dish towel for wiping off greasy fingers)


Which brand of popcorn pops the most kernels? -->