Appetites: Look inside the State Fair's roasted sweet corn operation

An ear of roasted sweet corn is one of the simpler treats available at the Minnesota State Fair.

But before you can snag an ear, there's a lot of hot, dirty work that needs to happen.

Brad Ribar is in his 32nd year running the State Fair's corn roast booth. The operation employs 95-100 people, he said, with about 60 working at any given time.

It's not easy work — temperatures inside the booth often top 100 degrees.

The normal goal is to sell around 200,000 ears of corn. At $3 an ear, the money adds up.

Still, Ribar says it's not enough to live off. His booth does about 30 other events throughout the warmer months, the biggest of which is the Great Minnesota Get-Together.

Ribar sat down with All Things Considered host Tom Crann at the fair to talk about how corn goes from farm to fairgoer.

Use the audio player above to hear more on the State Fair's roasted corn operation.

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