What is the production process of popcorn in the food industry?

Popcorn is arguably the most easily processed puffed food. Anyone who made homemade popcorn at home knows that some oil is put in the pot, and the dry corn kernels are added. After heating for a while, one grain bursts open.
It's even easier to use a microwave oven. There are dry corn kernels in the paper bag, which mix the oil and salt needed, and turn into a microwave oven for two minutes and turn into popcorn. In fact, puffed food is far more than popcorn, almost all cereals (rice, corn, oats, buckwheat, etc.) can be made into puffed food.
But the use of corn for popcorn has a natural advantage. Because the outer layer of corn kernels is covered with thicker seed coat (thick and can be eaten), after the dried corn kernels are heated, the internal water vaporizes and expands at high temperature to generate external pressure, and because of the isolation of the seed coat, The internal pressure should be large enough to break through the threshold of the seed coat to explode. The moment the explosion causes the starch to rapidly expand and cool, it becomes a loose popcorn.
Corn is the earliest food made of popcorn, because it is too easy to find, and dried corn is shaped as soon as it is heated. Other cereals, because the chaff is hard to eat, must be shelled, and can not produce a high-pressure environment after being shelled, and it is impossible to make other cereals into puffed food like popcorn. The modern food industry (or koukou hawker) makes the puffed foods by borrowing the pressure cooker and using the pressure cooker to produce a high temperature and high pressure environment (temperature and pressure must be controlled within a certain range, otherwise the starch will burn, or there is a risk of explosion), and then quickly open the outlet. The food inside is exploding due to the sudden release of pressure, forming a loose and crisp puffed food inside. There are also extruders used to make puffed noodles, but the principles are much the same.
Popcorn in the cinema can be mixed with sugar coatings and various flavors and fragrances after the corn is puffed. Popcorn can be sold out. Attached to a picture of my favorite Chicago double-flavored popcorn, the caramel-flavored sweet and crispy, cheddar cheese-flavored and mellow, mixed together to eat is really fat and convincing! !
The products produced by large “popcorn” companies are different from those produced by small stores, and they are different for customers.
Small stores (including cinemas, cafes) are often freshly made and are now sold. And if it is a large-scale enterprise, the production volume is large, the product has a long sales cycle from processing to packaging, and the product packaging requirements are high, and most of the products are sold to retail stores or supermarkets. I don't quite understand what the title of "quick" refers to. If large enterprises produce popcorn, the time from raw materials to finished products is not likely to be too short. After all, the weight is large and the raw material transmission route is long. Achieving "quick" depends on large-scale continuous pipeline operations.
This is the same in the industrial production of all foods. It is better to turn the fastest microwave oven at home for 2 minutes, and the process of cleaning and removing impurities in large enterprises is far more than two minutes. From the perspective of the production process, the family workshop is exactly the same as the large-scale enterprise. The reason why the large-scale enterprise is more efficient and more productive, quotes the phrase "The Wealth of Nations" as the biggest increase in labor productivity and the use of labor. The greater skill, skill, and judgment shown are the result of a division of labor."
Western popcorn is a special type of corn. They are smaller than regular corn kernels, have a harder outer skin and better sealing. Because it is small, it doesn't take too long to fry the source food diary. The water in this period will gelatinize the starch, form a batter with the protein, and convert some of the water into steam.