What's In Movie Theater Popcorn?

What makes movie popcorn so gosh darned expensive? What's in that strange yellow liquid they call butter anyhow? And while we're at it - what are in those popcorn anyhow?

Well, it's all a secret and theater owners are fighting the FDA to keep it that way:

Alarmed at the prospect, representatives of the National Assn. of Theatre Owners have been lobbying the FDA and congressional staff members in recent weeks to exempt theaters from the nutritional labeling requirement.

They argue that the proposed rules are an unwarranted intrusion into their business because people visit theaters to consume movies, not food.

"We're not restaurants where people go to eat and satisfy themselves," Gary Klein, the theater trade group's general counsel, said. "It's dinner and a movie, not dinner at a movie."

Theater operators have a vested interest in fighting the proposed rules, as they generate up to one-third of their revenue from selling popcorn, sodas and other snacks. Popcorn is especially profitable. As David Ownby, the chief financial officer of Regal Entertainment Group, the nation's largest theater circuit, recently said at an investor presentation, "We sell a bucket of popcorn for about $6. Our cost in that $6 bucket of popcorn is about 15 cents or 20 cents. So if that cost doubles, it doesn't really hurt me that much."

$0.20 to $6? That's a 3,000% mark up! Link


The popcorn is so expensive because almost all of the price of your ticket goes back to the studio that made the movie. Concession prices are jacked up because that's where theaters make nearly all of their money, and they (understandably) don't want people to know how much of the $5 you spend on a small popcorn is profit to them.
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Funny, the guy says "We are not restaurants" but at the same time most of their revenue is from food and as a patron you cannot bring in outside food. This is one of those cases of someone desiring a conclusion and coming up with reasons that are meant to support that conclusion but which aren't rational to the unbiased person. You sell food, tell your customers what's in it.
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I would think it's a health issue, for all the people out there with various food allergies or conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. It's critical for them to know what is in food.

Even for those without allergies or other conditions it's important dietary information that should be available on demand.
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Coconut oil and buttersalt - I worked in a cinema for two years. It's cheap and incredibly bad for you. I'd go home coughing from breathing in fumes from the popper a fair bit.

I always told customers who asked, or who offhandedly said they believed popcorn was the healthiest thing there.

But it is true about the mark-ups on food being the only way cinemas can profit. We didn't allow patrons to bring in hot food or alcohol, everything else was fine - but distributors take 70% off ticket sales, on average I think we made about 3 dollars a customer.
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I don't like the logic. If their main business is not food, they can serve anything they want, and not tell you what's in it?

Next they'll argue that health rules shouldn't apply to them because their main business isn't food.
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"We’re not restaurants where people go to eat and satisfy themselves"

Tell that to the people who order chicken wings, onion rings, candy and soda at the movie theater near me. Perhaps if customers knew what garbage they were putting in their body, Movie theaters would have to sell healthier alternatives. But that would probably cut their greedy profits by 1% so they'll be against it.
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"Perhaps if customers knew what garbage they were putting in their body, Movie theaters would have to sell healthier alternatives."

I doubt that. Nobody ever went broke because they didn't provide healthy alternatives.

I don't really understand why we need to make them provide what's in their food. I mean, if you're eating something but you're concerned because you don't know what's in it? Well, why are you eating it?

I understand it has become the law so I guess I support anyone trying to get the movie theaters to comply but it seems silly to scream about how someone won't reveal what's in the food they're selling. That should be an obvious hint that you shouldn't eat it, regardless of what is actually in it.
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Splint, you'd be surprised how some foods that actually appear healthy in some regards are actually worse than "ordinary" food in other regards. Like sodium. It's good for people to be able to make that choice.
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I'm sure it's just a personal preference but if I were interested in monitoring my sodium intake, and some place offering food refused to tell me the sodium intake, I simply wouldn't order their food. Just seems like the best way to solve that problem, in a Kantian sense that if everyone did that, the problem would be solved.
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corn
coconut or canola oil, w/ annatto coloring.
salt
melted butter fat (optional, this may or may not contain preservatives and flavorings depending on theater.)

There you go.
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Well, yeah, most of what I eat comes from local CSAs. I'm confident of their claims as to what goes into their foods, but if I wasn't, I'd find other foods, not force these CSAs to do something else. Well, maybe I'd ask them to better their methods or whatever, and if they didn't, then I'd move on.
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