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pamela netzky  

Garrett Popcorn still reigns as Chicago's most famous popcorn, but Pam Netzky says her growing snack-food business is popping.

Wells Street Popcorn, which operates two stores, in Chicago and Oak Park, landed a deal to provide bags of caramel- and cheese-coated popcorn to concession stands in downtown theaters such as the Cadillac Palace. Although Ms. Netzky says her plan was to keep opening stores, the concession gig opened up new possibilities.

She and her business partner, CEO Andy Friedman, started experimenting. They tested kernels from all over, various kinds of oils and different levels of salt. After months of trial and error, they hit upon a formula for making popcorn with sunflower oil, resulting in only 39 calories per cup, no cholesterol, no trans fat, no preservatives. They thought it tasted great, too. They called it Skinny Pop.

"We knew it was something bigger," Ms. Netzky recalls. In August 2010, the Lincoln Park native took her first bags of Skinny Pop to Potash Markets in Lincoln Park, a store where she'd shopped since childhood. Potash already sold her Wells Street Popcorn, and she sneaked in a few bags of her new stuff. It wasn't long before customers were asking for it.

Ms. Netzky and Mr. Friedman franchised out their Wells Street Popcorn stores to focus on distributing Skinny Pop.

"You have to be open to change, to spot opportunities and take chances," she says. "Here we were, running retail popcorn stores and planning to run more of those. We had to say, 'No, let's do this.' "

Skinny Pop, produced at a South Side factory, is now in more than 1,500 stores nationwide. "We're growing over 30% month-over-month in sales," says Ms. Netzky, who declines to disclose revenue. "Growth is fantastic."

Peter Aliu, grocery team leader at Whole Foods in Lincoln Park, decided to stock Skinny Pop after hearing Ms. Netzky's pitch.

"The name shouts out the product itself," he says. "Customers don't buy one. They buy two, three or four of them. The numbers do the talking."

Ms. Netzky strikes Mr. Aliu as "cool and calm and collected." Mr. Friedman, calls her "street smart," saying she always figures out a way to get things done. Her next goal: getting Skinny Pop into 2,000 more stores over the next few months. "We have fun every day," Ms. Netzky says. "We get up in the morning and run as fast as we can to work. That's a cool place to be in."

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