Reel strides: Upgrades in theater food impressive

Max Jacobson

Wednesday, March 14, 2001 | 8:23 a.m.

The yearly convention ShoWest, which was held March 5-8 at the Paris Las Vegas, is an annual showcase for innovative manufacturers who supply anything used by movie theater owners, from sound systems to the latest style of stadium seating.

The food industry also comes out in force to this trade show. It brings along multitudes of new-generation snacks currently (or nearly) available at local theater concession stands.

Following is an update on a few of the zanier, tastier and more compelling new products on display at this years ShoWest. Regal, Century, AMC (which does not have theaters in Las Vegas) and UA Theaters already stock many of these items, and new products are constantly being tested by the chains, so the options beyond soda and popcorn are expanding at a rapid pace.

One of the hottest-selling new candies are sour gummy worms, actually two products in direct competition with each other. Both are available in most theaters. One is Nuclear Sqworms, the other Sqwigglies. Both products are fat-free, and come in 3.5-ounce packages.

How can they be differentiated? Better ask a 10-year-old.

Both candies are multicolored and have a soft, chewy texture like most gummy candies, and neither stick to the teeth. Mike Rosenberg is the CEO of America's Favorite Candies and the maker of Sqworms. He says his candy "shocks the taste buds," and that is why it is so popular. The sourness comes from a combination of five acids: citric, malic, furmaric, lactic and tartaric. Yow!

Rosenberg says tastes in candy are getting more exaggerated.

"Hotter is hotter, sour is more sour now," he said. Also on display in his ShoWest booth were Squish, little cherry- and raspberry-flavored gummy fish, each the size of a Goldfish cracker.

"Making a bite-sized candy is important," Rosenberg cointinued, "because a movie is an emotional experience and you want to keep that hand-to-mouth thing going."

That would explain popcorn.

JustBorn Inc., makers of well-known Hot Tamales and the Mike and Ike fruit chews, is also getting into the sour-candy parade with Zours. These Good & Plenty-sized chews come in four sour flavors -- blue raspberry, green apple, tangerine and watermelon -- and are considerably less sour than the worm-shaped candies.

Los Angeles candy company Taste of Nature makes the new Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites, which are round, chocolate-covered candies about as big as Raisinets. At 220 calories per serving (40 grams, or around 1.3 ounces) the candy is not much more caloric than a Hershey bar. This is also what the trade calls a "shelf-stable product," meaning there are no eggs or egg products in the dough.

Candy is only the tip of the iceberg. All over the convention floor, optimistic concessionaires were showing off such things as Burgerpipe, which is peppery, tube-shaped beef and bland chicken burgers; air poppers for oil-free popcorn, advanced pizza concepts and even more substantial items to eat.

Integrated Food Systems is doing bite-sized popcorn chicken and jalapeno cheese poppers for movie theaters from Ma Dillinger's. They will sell for around $3.50 per 5-ounce portion. The popcorn chicken, which has a nice, light, crunchy coating and a persistently peppery finish, has just been picked up by Century Theaters.

One of the more popular items on the show floor was Pretzel Fillers, due to be launched nationwide May 1. These pretzels were developed by the company Super Pretzels, a chain which already sells hot pretzels in Las Vegas casinos such as Bally's, Caesars Palace and the Mirage. The product is essentially stuffed pretzels kept in a warmer, and they come in a variety of flavors: pizza sauce, jalapeno cheese, cinnamon apple and sweet cream cheese.

Then there is J. Vulpitta Pizza, produced by a new process that claims to be the nation's first fresh-baked, microwaveable pizza. UA and AMC have plans to test-market the pies, which come in individually sized boxes (around 7 inches in diameter) and will probably sell for just under $4. These pizzas are a tad doughy when they come out of the microwave, and actually get better -- and crisper -- after a few minutes in a warmer.

And that brings us to the technological hit of the show, Fry Works, a Rube Goldberg contraption that makes french fries -- at a rate of 120, 44-piece portions per hour -- out of pearly little potato granules. It's a fully enclosed machine invented by Hungarian Laszlo Kovacs, who is presently launching his concept in this country. We hear it is already quite the rage in Vienna and Budapest. Here's how it works:

The granules, made from real potatoes, are poured into a conical device called a granulator, where they are pressed into a hockey puck-shaped patty. Fries are then cut from the patty, dropped into hot canola oil, then into paper cones at the machine's base. When they come out, the fries are hot, crunchy and really quite delicious. If you didn't know better, you'd never guess they were made from granules. It's pretty amazing.

Kovacs was ready with an answer when pressed about the reluctance of a theater owner to serve fries because the oil from the potatoes might stain expensive upholstery.

"My french fries are no more oily than buttered popcorn," he boasted, proceeding to rub one on a shirt cuff to prove his point.

We wish him luck, but old habits die hard. It's going to be a long time before granulated potatoes displace popcorn as the king of American movie snack fare. This doesn't even make mention of popcorn's profit margin, high enough to shock any movie patron, which is not a boat most movie owners will want to rock anytime soon.