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Missouri gears up for Farm to School Crunch Off competition

Yellow popcorn in a popcorn popper with a silver bowl hanging above where the popcorn spills out.
Nick Wass
/
Associated Press
To assemble the bags of popcorn offered at events like the Mizzou Homecoming parade, popcorn farmer Brad Law first has to “assemble the minions,” his three sons and a few of his neighbors’ children. This year they’ve assembled 41,180 total bags for the competition, 5,000 of which will be tossed to Mizzou Homecoming parade attendees.

To assemble the bags of popcorn offered at events like the Mizzou Homecoming parade, popcorn farmer Brad Law first has to “assemble the minions,” his three sons and a few of his neighbors’ children. Together, they pop, bag and label thousands of packages — all to help the state compete in this year’s Crunch Off.

This year they’ve assembled 41,180 total bags for the competition, 5,000 of which will be tossed to Mizzou Homecoming parade attendees.

The Missouri Crunch Off is an annual competition celebrating Farm to School month, tracking how much locally-grown produce a state can “crunch” per capita.

Each unit is called a “crunch.” Missouri finished third out of eight states in the USDA’s Mountain Plains Region last year, with 188,673 total crunches. While Nebraska has been the reigning champion for five years, Missouri won Event of the Year in 2023 by supplying popcorn at Mizzou football games.

The Missouri Crunch Off is sponsored in part by MU Extension. Tracy Minnis, the Farm-to-Institution Local Foods Coordinator with MU Extension, helps plan and execute Crunch Off events.

Minnis said the extension celebrates all things local during Farm to School Month by “connecting with local producers, connecting kids with where their food comes from.”

The Mizzou Homecoming parade and game against Auburn will both be Crunch Off events this year, with attendees “crunching into” popcorn supplied by local farmers.

Law is based in King City and grows, pops and sells popcorn of all kinds: caramel, kettle, kernel and many more. Law participates in King City’s Crunch Off events too, throwing bags of popcorn in the town’s homecoming parade.

“It’s great to promote Missouri-grown products,” Law said. “The hardest people to sell to are in your own backyard.”

The popcorn farm gives local kids job opportunities, Law said, which can be hard to come by in rural areas. Law said he wrote “three or four scholarship recommendation letters” for a former popcorn minion heading to college.

Law said he hopes to keep participating in the competition.

“We want to keep popping popcorn and see where it takes us,” he said.

Several other Missouri organizations, including the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Missouri Department of Social Services, Missouri Department of Education and Missouri Grown USA, are also involved in the Crunch Off.

Crunch Off events can be as small as a family dinner or as large as a Mizzou football game; one of Minnis’ colleagues will be attending a “crunchy” wedding this month. All events just need to be registered at muext.us/MOCrunchOff. A guide for participating can be found at MU Extension’s website.

There are 163,000 crunches planned already, and Minnis is hoping for more.

“It’s looking good so far,” she said.

The Columbia Missourian is a community news organization managed by professional editors and staffed by Missouri School of Journalism students who do the reporting, design, copy editing, information graphics, photography and multimedia.
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