Gourmet popcorn, cookies, granola, pasta, and more, all ready to gift
I have rarely met a popcorn or cookie tin that I didn’t love, or at least respect. That’s because the best, coolest popcorn tins — and snack or cookie tins in general — have a prioritization of aesthetics that goes unmatched in a lot of other food packaging. This year’s brand new Walkers shortbread tin is intended to be next year’s vessel for presenting your homemade cookies at the office party. Popcorn and cookie tins are designed to last, and eager to be upcycled into the perfect storage container for your buttons, wrench sets, or Sonny Angel dolls. Arguably the highest functional form of the Royal Dansk butter cookie tin is, after all, that of a sewing kit.
As Thrillist’s Kristen Adaway reported in 2022, the origins of popcorn tins, and popcorn in general as an all-American snack, can be traced to the dawn of movie theaters and the Great Depression. Corn was one of the most readily available and affordable crops in the U.S., and the added element of packaging popcorn in a tin, while ambiguous in origin, can also likely be traced to the snack’s thrifty beginnings; on the site of Topsy’s Popcorn, an over 60-year-old Missouri-based brand, President Bob Ramm says that resource-savvy companies probably just upcycled their oil cans in packaging.
Over the years, popcorn tins have become increasingly creative and varied in design; there has never been a better time to scoop up a popcorn bucket that looks like an Edwardian hat box, or to gift your friend a Sanrio-themed tin. And as we enter the holiday season, we also enter prime tin season. The following tins were conceived with fun, longevity, and giftability in mind, so let’s find you the perfect one for upstaging your sibling at the White Elephant party this year.
