Buying unpopped popcorn is great. You purchase a container or bag of the kernels, stick it in the closet, and throw it in the air popper when you’re ready. Like magic, a little scoop of kernels turns into a giant bowl of popcorn. In terms of space efficiency, it’s hard to beat. Oatmeal and dry milk are the same way: you get a whole lot of food in an easy-to-store package.

I’d love to see more products sold in a compact form, including:

– Apples (get a dozen apples in the space that one regular apple takes up in your bag)
– Tortilla chips (buy a box of tiny wafers that expand in the oven)
– Wine (just add water — imagine all the ‘water to wine’ marketing opportunities)

Surely there are technological reasons why you can’t rehydrate an apple or make wine from a powder. But if someone figured out a way to do it, they’d open up whole new markets for these products. Plus, since they’d be non-perishable, you could even sell them online. Perhaps Amazon Grocery will tackle the task on their own. Grocery products are a huge market, and the convenience of dry, uncooked and unpopped foods could help convince a lot more people to buy some of their groceries online.