By Sadie Hunter
Heidi Greene quit her day job to follow her dream, opening Heidi Pops gourmet popcorn stores across central Indiana.
In August 2014, Greene and her husband, Russ, opened their very first Heidi Pops store in Plainfield before opening the Noblesville store in July 2015. In between, they opened fully operational kiosk locations in Greenfield and Ft. Wayne, and now, they’ve just opened their newest store in Clay Terrace.
“This is it. This is the big expansion in a short frame of time,” said Greene, who added she doesn’t plan to continue to open any more stores in the near future.
The couple, who currently live in Plainfield but are looking to move back to Hamilton Co., boasts its wide variety of flavor options, with new ones being created continuously.
“We have over 60 flavors, so I think we’re at 62 right now, maybe 63,” said Greene, who keeps a running list of new flavor ideas. “We’re always inventing new ones. Our new flavor is Breakfast at Heidi Pops. Think pancake syrup, and we use real bacon.”
All flavors are not made each day, but are available to order. Most fruit and candy-flavored popcorns are available in sealed packages at the stores and kiosks. Green said special orders are common though.
“To do the flavors all the time and have a consistent quality to them, it’s a lot of work. We use top quality products,” Green said. “We use real butter, real sugar. We melt our cheese down, so it’s not a powdered or reconstituted cheese.”
Before opening the first store, Greene worked at ADP as an executive assistant in the sales department, and Russ is a retired Army major in addition to always working in the corporate executive environment.
“This is something I’ve always wanted to do. So, I was always scoping out little areas and stuff,” Green said. “We wanted to have our own business, and probably for 11 or 12 years now, this is something I’ve wanted to do. So we were at an age where we said it was either time to do it or don’t do it.”
For more, visit heidipops.com.
