“We started talking to local retailers about a frozen snack food factory and they said ‘instead of frozen snack foods, can you do anything in ambient (shelf-stable food)’,” says Milan Vaswani, who leads new business and product development at Rademi. “That’s because 95 percent of corn chips, popcorn and corn puffs that sell in WA all come across from Sydney, Melbourne and Queensland.”
The freight alone makes this a very expensive exercise. “Last I checked it was around $7000 to get an empty container from Sydney to Perth – when you’ve got a product like popcorn, where half the bag is air, that’s about $1 per unit in transport,” he says.
Add a railway connection between Adelaide and Perth that breaks down often enough for gaps to appear on shelves, and the Vaswanis knew what their first foray into local production would be.
The family business, which started 17 years ago with Milan’s father delivering imported cashews in his overladen Toyota Corolla to liquor stores around Perth, would set up Western Australia’s first snack foods factory – starting with popcorn.
“We can create higher quality product and sell it at a lower price point, so ultimately, everyone wins, including consumers and the stores,” he says.
The Neerabup factory only opened six months ago, making sea salt popcorn and sweet and salty popcorn under the Amaise label, but the response from local retail groups such as Farmer Jack’s and Spud Shed has been heartening. “They have been great, to the point of offering us letters of support to go for grants,” Milan says.
This support has enabled Rademi experiment with other flavours and oils, starting with a sea salt popcorn made with olive oil. “Almost all snack foods in the country are made with sunflower, canola or vegetable oil, but a non-seed oil is a healthier alternative,” Milan says. “It gives you a much higher quality of product, from a texture and popping perspective.”
Learning from the experts
This move was not made on a whim, either. The family spent a month researching in the United States, where the popcorn market is far more mature and 80 percent is produced using either coconut, avocado or olive oil. With a lot of olive oil, and some avocado oil, produced in Western Australia, it made sense to try the same here.
“We launched a series of lunchbox size packs – we needed olive oil to meet the nutritional guidelines to sell in school canteens and we also found there were 60 percent less calories than standard popcorn,” Milan says.
Their popcorn is now sold in about 80 schools across the state, but the innovative business has much bigger plans for the beloved snack.
It’s why Rademi is exhibiting at this year’s Meet the Buyer™, the annual trade event showcasing Western Australian food and beverage to local, national and international markets.
“I’ve always had my eye on it, thinking that it’s the event once we had something to launch – we want to showcase a range of those flavours and concepts, including popcorn made with Western Australian olive oil and extra virgin avocado oil,” Milan says.
“There’s so much more you can do with popcorn than butter, salt or caramel; we are working away through about 13 or 14 innovations but we’ll probably bring along six key flavours to Meet the Buyer™.
Finding local flavours
Rather than importing food product, Rademi wants to send locally produced snacks over east, as well as overseas. While freight is expensive coming into WA, it is a lot cheaper to send product over east.
“You might pay $500-$600 per pallet sent from Melbourne to Perth, but it’s about $150 in the other direction,” Milan says. “It’s also cheaper to send a 4-foot container of popcorn from Perth to Singapore than a pallet from Perth to Melbourne.”
The plan is to develop flavours, such as butter lobster popcorn made with Australian butter and lobster, that will appeal to the Asian market on our doorstep. Rademi is also collaborating with other local producers such as Great Southern Truffles, developing a truffle salt popcorn.
“We really want to pioneer snack foods in WA and show a lot of other food producers and members of the industry around the country that we are fantastic to work with,” Milan says.
Meet the Buyer™ is at Crown Perth on Tuesday 21 October 2025. The exhibition floor is sold out, but chefs (and other buyers) still have time to snap up tickets to see what’s on offer.
Please note: Meet the Buyer™ is a trade and industry event only, but you can show your support by looking out for local produce like Amaise popcorn wherever you shop.