Before he was Farmer Bob—the founder of Princeton Popcorn—Robert Ralph was an entrepreneur from the Kansas suburbs with a long-held dream of farming his own land.
“There’s something very cool about producing an agricultural product,” he said. “You plant the seed, and you get to watch it grow.”
Years later, he bought 80 acres of tillable land near Princeton, Kansas, and decided it was time to try. In 2015, he planted his first crop of popcorn by hand on a plot smaller than most suburban yards.
“I came back two or three days later and was surprised it hadn’t grown. That’s how little I knew at that point,” he recalled.
By the end of that summer, he had a crop—and a steep learning curve ahead. Ralph began visiting the local co-op regularly, asking questions and building relationships with experienced farmers.
“I knew nothing except that I wanted to do this, so I had to gain as much knowledge as quickly as possible,” he said. “There was a little bit of skepticism around this guy coming from the suburbs down to rural Kansas, but over time I proved myself.”
After five years of trial, error, and mentorship, his yields improved. Then came the moment that turned passion into pressure: he harvested 500,000 pounds of popcorn.
“I was so excited, but also overwhelmed,” he said. “I was like, ‘What am I going to do with it?’”
His original plan was to sell a ready-to-eat product through grocery stores. But he quickly ran into a rigid system not built for small independent labels like his own. Grocery buyers review products once a year. Miss the window, and you wait another year.
“If I waited around a year, I’d go out of business,” he said.
Instead of waiting, Ralph pivoted. He launched Princeton Popcorn in the Amazon store, selling directly to customers nationwide.
“I didn’t expect it to sell very well,” he said. “But lo and behold, it did. And I just kept shipping more and more every year.”
At first, he experimented with fulfillment methods. He sent some inventory to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) —which stores products in Amazon fulfillment centers and handles picking, packing, and shipping to customers—while fulfilling other orders himself. The difference quickly became clear.
“With Fulfillment by Amazon, I basically have a nationwide warehouse distribution system that can provide a product to anybody, anywhere, in two days,” he said. “To build that on my own, at my scale as a startup, would be impossible.”
As sales grew—including 30% year-over-year growth in 2025—Ralph began using Amazon Warehouse Distribution (AWD) to send larger, bulk shipments of popcorn into Amazon’s network. The service stores inventory in bulk and automatically replenishes FBA warehouses as demand increases.
“Amazon Warehouse and Distribution has definitely solved a lot of issues for us as a rural seller,” he said. “We’re kind of hard to get to, and truck lines don’t have regular deliveries out here. Using Amazon has been more efficient and allowed us to ship multi-pallet orders when we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”
Operating through Amazon has also helped him scale sustainably, allowing him to hire temporary workers during peak planting and harvest seasons. Even as his popcorn now ships nationwide—including to Alaska and Hawaii—Ralph remains rooted in Princeton. His brand philosophy is intentionally personal. He calls it “seed to store.”
“I plant the seed myself, raise the crop, harvest it, clean it, condition it and offer it to customers,” he said. “My customers like knowing it doesn’t come from some massive, nameless corporation. It comes from me, Farmer Bob.”
To keep up with the demands of running both a farm and an online storefront, Ralph also uses Amazon’s AI-powered listing tools to help write product titles, bullet points, and descriptions.
“Amazon’s AI tools are fun to use. The listing content tool has been especially valuable,” he said. “It saves me time and helps structure the listing with the right keywords.”
Customer feedback has become both a testing ground and a reward.
“I put my heart and soul into this,” he said. “So when I get a five-star review, especially with comments like ‘Good job, Farmer Bob,’ or ‘your popcorn is the best we’ve ever had,’ it just makes it all worth it.”
Ralph is as dedicated to his community as he is to his product. During the summer, he hosts local kids on field trips to the farm, teaching them how popcorn grows, and perhaps inspiring a future generation of farmers.
“I try to teach them about popcorn in a fun way and just agriculture,” he said, “but also prove to them that they can be anything they want in America.”