Irish woman’s popcorn recipe wins UK and Ireland competition

Ashling O’Carroll, a 21-year-old corporate sales executive from Shankill in Dublin, has created the winning recipe in a UK and Ireland competition to a create a new flavour of popcorn.

The competition attracted 12,000 entries, and after 16,000 public votes were counted, the UCD graduate's Twisted Honeycomb, made with honeycomb, sea salt and vanilla sugar, was declared the winner and will now go into production with Propercorn in the UK. The limited edition flavour will go on sale in the UK and Ireland, where stockists will include Spar, Eurospar, Mace and Londis, in October

“I’ve always had a sweet tooth and I love to bake, which is where my inspiration came from,” said O’Carroll, who works with energy company Go Power. Let’s hope she also loves popcorn, as her prize for winning the competition is a lifetime’s supply of Propercorn. “It will be going on my will,” said O’Carroll, who obviously hopes to extend her winning streak into the afterlife.

Interest in the competition, which launched in June through an online Institute of Flavour website that guided entrants through the process of devising their recipe, took the company by surprise.

“We aimed to get 2,000 foodies engaged with the project, but after four weeks, we closed the competition with over 12,000 seasonings tossed, tumbled and finessed.”

There were 3,000 possible flavour combinations from the ingredients that could be used, and the six regional finalists were Dolce Pear & Gorgonzola, Coffee Banoffee, Garden Greens & Pesto, Twisted Honeycomb, Root & Ginger, and Paprika & Sweet Potato.

"We were totally overwhelmed by the huge range of delicious and inventive flavours submitted. Ashling's flavour stood out from the very beginning. We'll be spending the next few weeks in our kitchen making Twisted Honeycomb a reality and ensuring it's as good as it can be before it lands on shelves," said Cassandra Stavrou, who set up the company in 2011 with Ryan Kohn.