Fresh Popcorn Concession Platform
A heritage popcorn company built around a differentiated heirloom “Tiny” popcorn variety relies on unpopped kernels and limited private-label relationships, which provide stability but limit growth through low margins and weak pricing power. Early tests of fresh-popped concession popcorn at schools and events showed strong customer response and significantly better unit economics. Designed a digital concession and engagement platform — website and iPhone app — to support the shift to an experience-led food brand.
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Grow the business without entering another high-risk traditional CPG product launch, by repositioning popcorn as a fresh, experiential product delivered in community and event settings — using a digital-first platform to coordinate concession experiences, test markets, and generate data-driven insights while minimizing upfront operational risk.
Translated the strategic opportunity into a clear, testable digital product concept: digital product definition and framing, plus human-centered experience design covering personas, user journeys, and platform features. Used the Business Model Canvas to identify digital impact areas and persona, empathy, and journey maps to guide the design, and validated insights and deliverables with partner stakeholders through coordinator checkpoints and workshops.
High-fidelity website and iPhone app prototypes (~25 screens of workflows) that let schools, community organizations, and event organizers discover, request, and coordinate fresh-popped popcorn experiences; give the brand transparency and storytelling around its heirloom popcorn, quality standards, and heritage; let consumers locate events, interact with the brand, and give feedback; and capture structured data on demand patterns, usage contexts, and customer response. An execution-ready digital product concept presented to the founder — excluding physical operations, food preparation, vendor logistics, payment systems, and supply-chain implementation.