Jeramy Schultz was trained to be a fighter during his five years in the Marine Corps.

Since then, the Richland High School graduate has used those skills to battle the daily skirmishes a small entrepreneur must overcome to succeed.

For Schultz, who has been in the hot corn business for 18 years, that has sometimes meant sleeping in his car, surviving a pandemic and now trying to prepare to open his first brick-and-mortar store.

The new store at 624 George Washington Way in Richland is near Graze’s new location – A Place to Eat.

Schultz is planning $250,000 in tenant improvements to the 960-square-foot suite at Park Place Mall, according to building permits approved May 4 by the city.

“We’re looking at an August opening, maybe mid-August,” Schultz said.

And with this opening will come a new marketing rebranding.

It will change the name from KC Brand Kettle Corn to Popcorn Northwest.

“It’s a gourmet-style product,” he said. “We will have three or four consistent products every day. Then we will trade two or three different products every week. We want to keep it fresh. It’s gonna be fun. Popcorn lovers will love it.

The caramel apples and freshly squeezed lemonade that his company is also known for will also be produced in the store.

Begin

Schultz has been in the hot corn business since 2004, when he and a partner first purchased the business from a previous owner.

It didn’t start well.

“There’s a difference between being a manager and an owner,” Schultz said. “As the owner, the bottom line is that financially it’s on you. I understand that the responsibility stops here. If there were any problems, I could only blame myself.

“In 2004, we were losing money,” he continued. “Imagine someone reaching out and pouring water on them, and you try to catch all the water. I can not do it.

At that point, Schultz realized he might be in over his head.

But he fought back by reading every business book he could find.

“I decided to go back to college,” he said.

In 2006, he bought out his partner.

Eventually, things turned in the right direction. And for the next 13 years, you could find KC brand kettle corn all over the Tri-Cities and Northwest.

He has a stand inside the Toyota Center that sells popcorn, cotton candy, and freshly squeezed lemonade.

In 2018 Schultz bought a Subway sandwich franchise and opened it in Benton City.

And he continued to travel throughout the Northwest selling his hot corn at fairs and festivals.

“Last year at the Whidbey’s Island Fair, I realized I had been there a long time when I was selling popcorn to the children of the children I was selling to,” he said.

Pandemic delays

The new store had been planned since 2019.

But Schultz was so busy with day-to-day operations that he was postponed.

And then the pandemic arrived.

“Before the pandemic, there were eight people making popcorn in the Tri-Cities,” Schultz said. “Almost everything was closed. I was closed for a year and a half and received five months of PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) salary.

He tried to take orders online. But people order a bag when a single batch creates 10 bags.

“It became an uncomfortable situation,” he admitted.

Schultz had started a few years ago collecting materials for a possible move to a store.

This included an electric popcorn maker with a caramelizer.

Despite the pandemic, Schultz applied for a bank loan in February 2021, with the idea that the building would be ready to go in the fall of 2021.

“Dealing with a bank during the pandemic took a year to approve the loan,” he said. “The prices of things like wood have started to go up. The supply chain caused a 12-week backlog just to order materials.

Finally, Schultz sees the light at the end of the tunnel.

He likes the new Park Place location, with G-Way traffic passing all day. The hardest part is that the store only has one dedicated parking spot.

“But the building owner was more than courteous to us,” Schultz said. “He’s been great.”

KC Brand Kettle Corn is also known for its fundraising program, in which clubs or teams buy bags of hot corn from the company for $3 a bag and then resell them for $6.

“The pandemic kind of killed fundraising,” Schultz said. “I’m trying to get back to it”

The product and the store

Making popcorn is different from making popcorn.

Boiled corn is made in a large kettle where most of the ingredients are added, along with the kernels, before being popped at a very high temperature.

In the kettle, corn kernels, oil, sugar, salt and flavorings are all mixed together.

Then the kettle is heated to 400 degrees.

The ingredients must be mixed all the time to prevent everything from burning.

When the kettle reaches temperature, the sugar and all other flavors begin to melt.

When the kernels start to pop, the sugar and other flavors glaze the popcorn.

Then salt and a little more sugar are added.

But making popcorn is physically tough.

“My wrists and shoulders are bad,” Schultz said. “You stir 10 pounds of product for hours.”

With the new store, he said, people can now stand on the George Washington Way side of the building and watch employees make hot corn.

When customers enter through the front door, they are greeted by a large wall filled with boxes of the various products for sale that week.

“I will probably hire four or five people for the first year at the store,” he said. “Next year I will probably have to hire four or five more people. I will hire people as soon as the store is about to open.

Schultz said he still plans to keep his trailers to help fuel the business.

“The first year, we will definitely continue to do events,” he said. “After that, we will measure time, stress and numbers to see what we need to do. But there are a handful of events between here and Prosser that I still want to do.

But opening the store will create better opportunities, he said.

“I love the retail, the face-to-face aspect of business, meeting and talking with people,” he said. “I love that ‘Oh, wow!’ when someone tries our popcorn for the first time. In that, if it goes as planned, our plan is to have that “Oh, wow!” every time a customer walks into the store.”