Deanan Gourmet Popcorn
When Lt. Col. Dean Alexander retired from the United States Air Force in 1979, he and his wife Nanella purchased a gourmet popcorn franchise in a San Antonio, Texas shopping mall. They chose the company name by combining their own names (Dean + Nan = Deanan). Over the next several years, they bought and sold several retail locations. This allowed them to work together and involve the three of their five children still living at home.
Over the next several years they received a number of awards, including the National Sales Award for 1980. Dean pursued local businesses and developed a large customer base, which purchased popcorn tins for clients and associates. Nan's artistic touches in personalizing canisters provided unique designs available only through their store. Additional accounts came from pharmaceutical companies using the canisters as gifts for their customers.
In 1987, a new program was developed on a trial basis - fundraising. This program grew from one small country school selling our products in San Antonio, Texas, to over 1,000 customers statewide. The program was so successful that after several years the retail stores were sold, allowing the company to focus all of its attention on the fundraising and business gift programs.
Today, Deanan is a nationwide provider of gourmet popcorn for fundraising, grocery store chains as well as a provider of great-tasting gifts. Still family-owned and family-operated, Deanan provides the same personal service, attention to detail, and great-tasting products that were the cornerstones of Dean and Nanella's little popcorn operation back in 1979. The main difference is that now Deanan gourmet popcorn is well-known and available nationwide, through the education network, retailers and with the help of the Internet!
All the flavors we sell are our own recipes, developed in our factory kitchen and extensively tested. But that's not the entire story. Truly great recipes start with truly great ingredients.
From the beginning, one of the reasons for the popularity of the popcorn was due to the Alexanders' dedication to purchase only the finest ingredients available. The regular popcorn used by most other companies and sold in stores is called "butterfly" due to the small "wings" that break off during the confection process.
We believe butterflies belong in the garden. We use a special "mushroom" popcorn, named because of the large round kernel it produces when popped. It's so good, after numerous customer requests, we made it available in its unpopped form, but most folks still like us to pop it and flavor it for them.