This baseball season, you can again add Kentucky Proud Popcorn to your starting lineup of foods and snacks at minor league parks in Florence, Lexington and Louisville.
Kentucky Proud Popcorn is made from corn grown by Western Kentucky farm families and processed in Murray by the Preferred Popcorn company.
The ballparks will post signage at concession stands to promote Kentucky Proud Popcorn. The signs will include images of two of the farm families that grow the popcorn.
The Louisville Bats will open their 2015 season Thursday against the Toledo Mud Hens at Slugger Field. The Florence Freedom are scheduled to play their home opener April 14 against the Joliet Jammers at UC Health Stadium. The Lexington Legends’ first home game at Whitaker Bank Ballpark is set for April 16 against the West Virginia Power.
Fans can also buy Kentucky Proud Popcorn at 88 Kroger stores in Kentucky.
About Preferred Popcorn:
Preferred Popcorn was the dream of Norm Krug, a Nebraska popcorn grower who was troubled when his quality popcorn would be mixed in with large loads of average harvests and then disappear into the general marketplace. Krug built his own company in 1997, turning to three other farmers to join him in buying a dormant processing plant.
Preferred Popcorn is 100 percent farmer-owned. That means Krug is able to guarantee that only the best popcorn goes to his customers. Those top growers in Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota and Indiana are paid bonuses for meeting the quality standards that Krug expects so that Preferred can live up to its motto.
Preferred is a growing business that now represents more than 1,000 farm families with customers in 40 countries. The Kentucky Proud connection is just beginning. A Murray family sold their popcorn operation to Krug and he built on the great farm connections with Western Kentucky growers.
The Kentucky Department of Agriculture outlined a comprehensive plan to select the Kentucky popcorn and market it directly from these Kentucky Proud farm families to the homes, retail stores and ballparks of customers. When you see the 100 percent Kentucky Proud Popcorn logo on Preferred Popcorn’s microwave boxes, you are guaranteed that it is 100 percent direct from these Western Kentucky farm families.
Kroger, the largest grocery retailer in Kentucky and one of the nation’s largest, joined the effort by offering the new microwave popcorn products in all 98 Kentucky stores. Because of these Kentucky Proud connections, KDA officials say Krug is doubling quality bonuses paid to his Kentucky growers and expects acreage and payments to our farm families to far exceed the $2.9 million paid to them in 2013.
From Kentucky Department of Agriculture