Traveling treat: Local business owners enjoy life on the road with kettle corn

OTHELLO — The delicious smell of snacks and treats filled the air last week at the Othello Fair, with powdered funnel cakes, barbecued delights and kettle corn. And Jim and Karen Huff, with Unique Kettle Korn, said they are all about spreading joy through delicious treats.

Jim Huff said Unique Kettle Korn began as 5J Kettle Corn on the coast of Washington about 25 years ago.

“When I first started, no one even knew what kettle corn was here. I had to give a letter to fair boards to tell them what I’d be selling 25 years ago,” Huff said.

Huff said he got the idea to start the business from his brother-in-law in Minnesota who’d worked in food vending for a number of years before doing kettle corn, a Midwestern staple. Huff said he and his ex-wife flew to Minnesota around 1996, built a popper and flew it back out to Washington.

He said he still uses that same popper to this day. After running 5J Kettle Corn on the coast for about five years, Huff said he relocated to eastern Washington and put the business on hold until restarting with Unique Kettle Korn and his wife, Karen Huff, about three years ago.

“Getting back into it was extremely difficult because there’s so many poppers and so much competition out there,” Huff said.

Huff said they mostly sell their kettle corn at fairs, rodeos and pop-up booths in front of local stores, such as Penhallurick’s True Value and Love’s Travel Stop in Ritzville. He said they are fortunate also to have a connection with Davis Shows Northwest, a traveling carnival.

He said he has his CDL and drives a truck for the carnival while setting up the booth to sell kettle corn during the week. Huff said it’s pretty much a year-round venture between local events and summer travel.

He and his wife enjoy going wherever the wind takes them. Three years ago, he said they spent a month traveling along the Oregon coast with the carnival before winding up at a rodeo in Reno, Nevada.

“We travel a lot. We’ve popped kettle corn in Texas. We spent three weeks this summer in Eureka, California,” Huff said. “We’ve actually worked in Yellowstone National Park for six weeks. We just kind of travel around and do what it takes to make a living and just enjoy life.”

With the kettle corn, Huff said he sticks to a very original recipe. He said it’s just corn, oil and sugar, with some unique touches he can’t give away, hence the company name.

“Corn, oil, sugar and lots of heat and 30 years of passion,” Huff said. “And salt at the end, of course.”

Huff said the local support since relaunching the kettle corn business has been wonderful. Even with COVID-19 last year, he said locals were extremely supportive in the limited opportunities.

He said it’s been incredible having more events this summer.

“People are definitely happy to get out and enjoy their corn again, all that stuff we missed out on a year ago,” Huff said.

While he said the weather was tough at the Othello Fair, he said it was a good show and Saturday night made up for a lot of the slowness the rest of the week.

Events like the fair and rodeos offer 10 times what they typically make at pop-up events at stores locally, he said. While those local pop-ups help keep cash coming in, the big fairs are the real “meat and potatoes” for the business.

Huff said interacting with people, sharing something people enjoy, was a big factor in starting up the kettle corn business. He said they give a lot of free samples away and like to interact with the community.

He said he had big aspirations for where the business could go 25 years ago, but he’s happy with where things are.

“It’s not all about the money for us, we enjoy what we do,” Huff said. “We’re pretty content and who knows where our lives will take us? We could close the business tomorrow and go back to Yellowstone.”

Huff said they don’t typically have a set schedule, but people can check the business’s Facebook page to see where the kettle corn booth will be.