By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
It was three in the morning. Jacob and his buddies were driving straight through to the K-State bowl game in Arizona, and they stopped for gas at a station in Texas. Jacob grabbed a bag of cherry-cheesecake flavored popcorn as a snack. “It was not very good,” he said. “I think I could do better than that.” Years later after college, Jacob would return home and join his family’s popcorn business where he would perfect a cherry-cheesecake recipe. That flavor and others would become part of the offerings that this business provides at Christmastime and year-round.
Jacob Yingst is manager and co-owner of Schlaegel’s Popcorn at Whiting. His grandparents, Gary and Marian Schlaegel, were dairy farmers and operated a tax accounting business. They also raised some popcorn on the farm for family use. They started giving the popcorn as Christmas gifts and selling the unpopped popcorn. Then they started flavoring the popcorn. The response was so positive that Schlaegel’s Popcorn became the family business.
Jacob’s great-grandmother had her own delicious recipe for making caramel corn. “All our sweet or glazed flavors are variations on her family recipe,” Jacob said. Continue reading “Jacob Yingst, Schlaegel’s Popcorn”
