National Popcorn Day has a special meaning for Robert Mendez, and not just because he’s the co-owner of The Cornivore Popcorn Company in Albuquerque.

“My wife was really sick,” Mendez told KOB 4 recently. “She had a stroke and, when she came back from the stroke, she couldn’t eat a lot of artificial flavors so we couldn’t make popcorn like everybody else. She couldn’t do the corn syrup, so we had to create this whole new way of doing popcorn.”

It became a business eight years ago, growing from a mobile cart to a 5,000-square-foot building. During that time Cornivore has made nothing but popcorn in unique varieties.

“We got popcorn all over the place, sometimes stacked to the ceiling,” Mendez said.

The popcorn is created all in one step, he noted. The popcorn is cooked inside the candy while they’re cooking the candy. That allows the core of the popcorn to be flavored with what’s being cooked in the pot.

Cornivore comes in gluten-free flavors and offers a New Mexican twist on traditional popcorn.

“People really love green chile in New Mexico,” Mendez said. “We have a flavor called New Mexico Sunset. It’s a red-green chile cheddar. That’s one of our two popular ones. Of course, Biscochito is our number one New Mexico flavor that doesn’t have any heat.”