18. PROPERCORN

Founders: Cassandra Stavrou and Ryan Kohn
Founded: October 2009 (launched October 2011)
Website: www.propercorn.com

Long a staple of overpriced cinema kiosks, popcorn as a pre-packaged snack food has never quite taken off in the same way, but following in the footsteps of previous Startups 100 gourmet popcorn success story Joe & Seph’s, Cassandra Stavrou and Ryan Kohn’s start-up Propercorn looks on its way to changing that. PROPERCORN’s gluten free, low calorie and 100% natural popcorn comes in five different flavours and lays claim to being a legitimately healthy snack food without the ensuing ‘trade off’ of bland or disappointing taste.

It is a claim that consumers appear to heartily agree with – PROPERCORN currently sells around 1.5 million packets of popcorn a month and has recently commenced export operations to Benelux, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland. The start-up confidently expects to treble revenues in the notoriously competitive snack food market this year – and after trying it, we well believe they might.