Blair Townsend, left, and son Tanner at their popcorn farm in Walsingham, Ont. The crop went from a sideline to the core of the family business after demand for tobacco vanished in 2008.Geoff Robins
The Ontario Popping Corn Company and its brand Uncle Bob’s Popcorn began as a side hustle. Second-generation tobacco farmer Robert Townsend saw in 1985 that the nicotine plant’s boom was weakening, so he tried sowing a few acres of popcorn in the sandy soils of the family farm in Southwestern Ontario’s Norfolk County.
He had no idea that the niche-crop experiment would be why his son and grandchildren today run a thriving business and still farm the land that his parents purchased in 1949 – even though the market for their primary product, tobacco, would be decimated by 2008.
That was when popcorn turned into a viable backup plan after the federal government gave farmers in the region $300-million to buy out the tobacco quotas and exit the industry in the face of a pressured cigarette industry.
“It was a real setback for the countryside,” says Robert’s son Blair, 68. But the hobby they’d dabbled in for 20 years would push their farm into its next generation. Today, Blair, his wife Livia and their three adult children grow 200 to 400 acres of popcorn annually.
Along with a seasonal employee and five part-timers, the Townsends process, pack, and ship popcorn for wholesale and retail customers from their climate-controlled, 25,000-square-foot facility in Walsingham, Ont., about 90 kilometres southeast of London. Seven types of kernels are sold online and in grocery stores across Ontario – including Foodland, Farm Boy, and Food Basics, and have been shipped as far as England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Japan.
Blair Townsend took over his father’s popcorn side business in 1988 but continued to farm tobacco at the same time for another two decades.Geoff Robins
Business owners such as the Townsends who are attuned to market fluctuations are key to successful multigenerational companies, says Kerry Smith, national leader for family office services at countrywide financial and business advisory firm MNP. Outside influences including plummeting demand (as with tobacco) and now a trade war (as with the United States) can profoundly alter an enterprise, so a family armed with a flexible plan may adapt well.
“Succession planning is never static – it’s always fluid,” Mr. Smith says.
Family companies need to balance their forethought with being ready to pivot if necessary, he adds. Without a roadmap for transition, unexpected external forces may hurt operations. “It can drastically change things for the family if they don’t have a plan,” Mr. Smith says, while noting that a program that’s too rigid can also create issues.
Because popcorn had been the Townsends’ sideline for two decades, they already had an alternative crop when tobacco got decimated. Research by Robert and his three business partners in the 1980s revealed “there was quite a bit of popcorn being imported into Canada, and a dwindling supply being grown here,” says Blair, who at 25 was appointed the “popcorn guy” in charge of growing, cleaning, packaging and selling the kernels.
By 1988, the four associates decided they didn’t need the distraction of a small company eating into precious Saturdays when tobacco was their main crop. “They also didn’t have a place to sell [the popcorn],” Blair says. “Finding customers was very difficult.” He bought the remaining inventory and all the popcorn machinery for $10,000 and ran the popcorn company while still farming tobacco.
Tanner Townsend has transitioned into the family business over several years and plans to focus on the Ontario Popping Corn Company full time starting this spring.Geoff Robins
The Townsends concentrated on popcorn after growing their last crop of tobacco in 2008 and today, business is booming – thanks to a nation that’s embracing Canadian-grown products in reaction to trade tensions with the United States. Uncle Bob’s has seen record sales since last February and 2025 was the company’s best year yet: online sales jumped from 15 orders per week to 40 per day.
This surge in customers buying locally grown products is a selling feature the Townsends have been championing for decades. “I was always selling ‘buy Canadian,’ but nobody cared, because it was just about the price,” Blair says.
Admittedly, Uncle Bob’s can’t compete with the Orville Redenbachers of the popcorn world – just four multinational firms own 87 per cent of the U.S. market share for microwave popcorn, according to a 2021 investigation by The Guardian newspaper and Food & Water Watch. The Canadian market is similarly dominated by behemoths.
But current “elbows up” sentiment may be the ticket to getting Canadian retailers and customers to source domestically. The company recently became the main supplier for Slush Puppy, which sells popcorn in arenas and gas stations, and scored a contract with Giant Tiger, where the store brand’s yellow popcorn kernels come from Uncle Bob’s.
“It’s been nice to see,” says Blair’s son Tanner, 29, who manages sales and marketing for Ontario Popping Corn. “As kids, we saw the amount of hard work our parents have put in, and now, finally, we’re seeing people want the product we’ve been trying to sell for so long.”
Blair and Livia are eyeing retirement in the next two years, but the succession conversation has been ongoing for the past 10. “I tried to shape what I was doing continuously so I could come back here and do things effectively,” Tanner says. While he has also been working off-farm for a local company, he will become Ontario Popping Corn’s full-time general manager this spring, backed by a business degree from McMaster University and experience in Toronto’s corporate food industry.
Online sales of Uncle Bob’s Popcorn jumped from 15 orders per week to 40 per day after trade tensions with the United States fuelled “buy Canadian” sentiment last year.Geoff Robins
Tanner got more involved in Uncle Bob’s after moving back to Walsingham when the pandemic hit. Four years ago, he and his wife purchased the house neighbouring his parents’ property, and later the surrounding 100-acre farm that was originally owned by his great-great-grandfather.
“It’s a good first step in starting to pass some of those responsibilities on and getting our feet wet with how much farmland costs,” Tanner says. It was a logical move “because even if things don’t go the way that we’re planning them, at least we have property.”
His siblings, Courtney, 29, and Mitchell, 31, also work off-farm while being involved in Uncle Bob’s. When sales spiked last year, the whole family pitched in, Blair says.
Tanner says the company will find ways to become more efficient on the farming side as the price of inputs such as fuel, seeds, and equipment rise. The family also aims to expand their private label operation and in-house branded offerings online. Above all, the Townsends want to keep championing the Canadian popcorn market.
“We’re continually spreading the gospel of Canadian popcorn,” Tanner says. “It’s crucial for a country to have its own domestic supply.”
Have a suggestion of a Canadian multigenerational family business for this regular series? E-mail smallbiz@globeandmail.com.