Image courtesy Popped Culture
Step into Harrisburg’s Broad Street Market on any given weekend, and the colorful, retro Popped Culture signage is sure to catch your eye. Samples of the artisan popcorn flavors with creative, colorful names to match the packaging are sure to catch your tastebuds as well. We’re talking Caramel Brown Sugah, Godfather’s Garlic Parm and Spicy Lime Hot Mess. For the traditionalists, there’s Showtime Butter Popcorn and Big Top Pop Kettle Corn. Just in time for the holidays and gift-giving, there’s Casper’s Peppermint Bark and Gingerbread Snap.
But behind the creative flavorings and packaging, there’s much more: a Harrisburg man on a mission to mentor area youth with entrepreneurial spirit, purpose and passion.
Planting Seeds
Mark Ross Wieder, Esq., was working as an attorney when he had the opportunity to travel abroad with a leadership program. A visit to a community center in Morocco focused on saving youth from terrorist groups, planted a seed with the Harrisburg native. “I started thinking about problems that young folks face back home—nutrition, obesity, access to healthy foods, hunger—that was something I could get behind. I was missing purpose in my life…this was a career pivot for me,” says Wieder, now 32.
He started out donating popcorn to after-school care, working with the Central Pennsylvania and Harrisburg Food Banks. In his first year, 2015, he donated 1,700 bags of popcorn. But he wanted to do even more.
Image courtesy Popped Culture
Becoming a POPrietor
“I wanted to provide a hand up, not just a hand out,” says Wieder. He developed a business plan for Popped Culture, restructuring it as a business that would mentor youth with entrepreneurial and life skills, all revolving around one of America’s favorite snacks, popcorn. Why popcorn? “Corn is the world’s most prolific grain,” Wieder explains. “It’s used to address hunger as a basic building block of human life, as well as energy, ethanol fuel—it seems so simple.”
It took Wieder about a year to fully launch Popped Culture after gathering culinary advice from a chef, getting business advice from the Social Enterprise Institute at Elizabethtown College and doing plenty of experimentation with fun flavors.
Today, Popped Culture is available every weekend at Harrisburg’s Broad Street Market, plus a slew of central Pennsylvania breweries and restaurants. Sometimes customers are treated to “popcorn performances”—seeing the popcorn-popping process live in the market’s plaza.
Customers can choose between 10-12 flavors ranging from $4 snack bags to $36 giant-size bags—all of them gluten-free and without peanuts or tree nuts, and nearly all of them dairy-free and vegan. Top-selling flavors are Caramel Brown Sugah and Godfather’s Garlic Parm.
Image courtesy Popped Culture
Mark Wieder and one of his youth employees, Davion
Sharing Kernels of Wisdom
And the smiling faces behind Popped Culture’s counter? The business employs two teenage students who are learning the ropes with Wieder as their mentor. “They are growing by leaps and bounds…learning how to relate to people, making good eye contact, knowing their products and flavors,” Wieder says. They are both cyber school students who found out about Wieder’s venture through a teacher.
Davion, 15, has worked for Popped Culture for more than six months, and the Harrisburg teen rattles off a long list of skills he’s acquired in that short time. “I’m learning life skills, entrepreneurial skills, how to be professional, how to be on time, and it’s helped me mature,” he says.
He works every Saturday for six hours, and the money he earns helps buy things he needs or household items needed by his family. With a younger brother and sister at home, along with a single mother, he says it feels good to help provide for his family. “I’m being the man of the house…my mom is happy and proud of what I’ve become.”
Davion says he appreciates Wieder’s leadership. “He can show tough love, but he’s a good guy and teaches me a lot. He’s a hard worker and never stops.” Davion says he hopes to continue working at Popped Culture as long as he can, but it’s already planted seeds of his own. “I want to go to college…be a business owner too. I hope to be successful and put my mom in a good spot.”
Popping with Possibilities
Popped Culture may soon be “exploding” with additional success. “With the process in place, I’d like to franchise around the nation,” says Wieder. “Everywhere you go, there is tension in city youth. They are the future of our nation, and I’d like this business model to be picked up and enjoyed—and do some good in the process.”
Order online at: poppedculture.org
Or visit their stand at the Broad Street Market, 1233 North Third St., Harrisburg, PA, broadstreetmarket.org
Popped Culture is also available at:
- Brain Vessel (The Gallery), Mechanicsburg
- The Garlic Poet Restaurant and Bar, New Cumberland
- Liquid Hero Brewery, York
- Molly Pitcher Brewing Company, Carlisle
- Zeroday Brewing Company, Harrisburg
