Dec. 3—JAMESTOWN — When Sonja and Craig Thierer moved back to her native Jamestown about five years ago to be near her mother, she knew she wanted to start a business.
Sonja had worked as a corporate event planner for many years, she said, and lived in Colorado for 25 years.
"I used to work for mywedding.com in Colorado," she said. "... And one of my clients in Orange County, California, all she did was gourmet popcorn buffets for the movie industry and high-end wedding venues."
Her client would create "beautiful popcorn buffet tables," Sonja said, and take pictures of them.
"I would always oogle over them and she said, 'Oh, you could do this job too. You just have to have the right equipment.'"
Sonja filed that in the back of her mind. It was around 2010.
Fast forward to Sonja's return to Jamestown, wanting to have a career where she could utilize the space of her home and offer flexibility when she had family obligations. In 2020, she decided it was time to try the gourmet popcorn business and said she learned about it from YouTube and Pinterest.
But three months after ruining two of Craig's "really expensive pans" using a recipe from others on social media, it was time to get the right equipment, she said.
"So we bought a popcorn popper like you would see in a bar and then we bought a professional caramel cooker from a (closing) candy store in White Bear Lake (Minnesota)," she said.
And, importantly, she bonded with the woman who sold her the caramel cooker. The woman, like Sonja, had a parent with dementia.
"She gave me her award-winning recipe (for caramel), which was a really good gift because a lot of people wanted to buy her recipe for it because she got best at (the) Minnesota State Fair and Best in Minneapolis for her recipe," Sonja said.
Armed with the right equipment and that recipe, she began having success very quickly making artisan gourmet popcorn, varying the basic recipe for her flavors, she said.
By October 2020, she was testing the popcorn with people she knew.
"First you use your family and friends and then pretty soon they don't answer the door when you come to go, 'I've got more popcorn,'" Sonja said. "So then they start having their friends and their friends and their friends (taste it) and you get about six layers out of people and ... that's when you get real honest answers."
Her business officially launched sooner than expected.
Around midnight the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, one of those people testing the popcorn posted a picture of it on the Community of Jamestown Supporting Our Local Community Facebook page and tagged Sonja in it, which enabled her to see the post.
"I woke up, that was Sunday morning at 8 a.m., to that person calling me and saying 'You have 13 orders,'" she said.
The Thierers quickly created a
website
where people could order popcorn and a Buffalo City Popcorn Facebook page. Buffalo City Popcorn operated under the state's cottage law at that time, she said, selling only to customers in North Dakota during the pandemic. They used their laundry room through that first Christmas season to make the product, and she said they knew in the first three days that they had outgrown the space.
"It just took off like crazy," she said.
By Dec. 23, 2020, they were making an average of 90 gift boxes a day that included three flavors chosen by the customer, Sonja said.
"We knew that we were on to something and so many people were ... so supportive," she said.
With an eye on a larger vision, in 2021 they converted Craig's workshop into a commercial kitchen and got a commercial license, a move that allowed them to sell their products outside North Dakota. In 2021, they shipped to 38 states, she said. They ship anywhere in the continental U.S. but do not have plans to ship globally.
Buffalo City Popcorn products are all about colorful popcorn and bold flavors, whatever the flavor may be. Craig says they get those bold flavors because they're not afraid to apply the product they're using with the popcorn.
"We get feedback from people all the time all over the country," Sonja said. "They appreciate that (flavor). Because they've bought popcorn from other places ... that they say 'it's so wimpy.' I kind of look at it this way: If you want plain popcorn, you can do that yourself."
Buffalo City Popcorn refers people who want theater/plain popcorn to the Bison 6 Cinema in Jamestown, she said. It was important not to compete with that business, she said.
And for Sonja, a lot of the fun is coming up with those intense flavors.
"I like to be creative and I don't like to do the same thing all the time so this (business) kind of gave me an outlet to be a little bit of a mad alchemist, so to speak, because we have about 80 different flavors but not all at the same time," Sonja said. "We only have about 20 at a time."
About half of their flavors are sweet and half are savory. They mix flavors together to make new ideas and they have some for seasonal holidays, she said.
It's also about creative names to go with the popcorn. During this holiday season, for example, sweet flavors include Holly Jolly, which features three flavors in one bag: cinnamon, green apple and vanilla. There's You've Been Naughty, a black-colored popcorn with black cherry flavor, and Reindeer Crunch, with cinnamon popcorn, white chocolate-covered pretzels and holiday M&Ms.
On the savory side, flavors at this time include A Chili Day, featuring mild chili with white and cheddar cheese; Buffalo Breath, with buffalo wing sauce flavor and a hint of blue cheese, and Loaded Baked Tater, featuring smoky bacon, cheddar and sour cream with chives.
Craig is the chief popcorn maker, popping the popcorn and storing it in 5-gallon buckets before it moves on to the next step where it will get a sweet or savory flavor. They use mushroom popcorn, Sonja said, because that type of popcorn is little balls that hold flavors better.
"We also use coconut oil for our oils for our popcorn and a lot of companies don't do that, they use like a vegetable or a corn oil or something," she said. "It's just a cleaner oil and less people are allergic to that or have issues with it."
The Thierers are gluten sensitive and say most of their popcorn flavors are gluten free.
The popcorn is available in several-size packages and is made to order. Along with selling wholesale and through their website, Buffalo City Popcorn offers popcorn buffets which are popular for weddings, graduations and other events, she said. Corporate gifts are also popular.
They work with groups doing fundraisers, too.
"We try to give back to the community," Sonja said.
Just in the last few weeks, the Thierers added fudge in response to customer requests. There are five flavors to choose from currently: apple pie, pumpkin spice praline, maple cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate.
And they're venturing into selling hats, cups, tumblers and shirts.
"I just purchased an engraver so I can create some merchandise for us," Craig said.
Sonja and Craig foresee a time when their business will outgrow their home and need to move to a larger location at Jamestown.
Sonja met with Dorothy "Dot" Henke, North Dakota founder of Dot's Homestyle Pretzels, which was acquired by Hershey Co. along with Pretzel Inc. in 2021 for $1.2 billion. During the meeting over Zoom, Henke visited with each of the 12 people in that meeting.
"We were all in the food business, North Dakota food processors, and she goes, 'you and I are real similar,'" Sonja said when Henke visited with her. "We have similar equipment, we have similar things and so she gave me a whole bunch of information that was worth 1 point 2 billion dollars. At that point, we didn't know that. But she had started that business from her kitchen table in Arizona after she had retired and in less than 10 years, you know, made it into what it is."
Craig isn't only working in Buffalo City Popcorn. He's been employed by MiTek Inc. USA for 21 years, working in quality assurance.
"We have lofty goals," Sonja said. "He would like to be able by the time he retires to replace his income, grow the (popcorn) business enough where it's big enough to support not only us but to hire people and have employees."
And she'd like to keep it here.
Family members are also part of the business. Son Erik Orgaard of Jamestown helps as does daughter Chelsea Lipetzky in Monument, Colorado. And grandson Ryker Lipetzky is starting to be a distributor in Colorado, Sonja said.
In addition to its website at buffalocitypopcorn.com, Buffalo City Popcorn's popcorn may be purchased at the Dakota Store and the University of Jamestown bookstore. Sonja notes that limited flavors and sizes are available at those two locations.
