ON FOOD AND CHILDHOOD:
ON FOOD AND CHILDHOOD:Food has always been an important part of my life. When I was a little girl, my Grandmother worked for a local bakery in town. She was very skilled and when she was baking for the family she always let us be a part of the process. Playing with the bread dough, making cookies, getting covered head-to-toe in flour. Very happy memories.
I got into making our product because our family would always get together at the holidays to make Christmas cookies, and I mean LOTS of Christmas cookies. We would bake for days! We would package and share them with all of our family and friends. Sort of like a cookie exchange, but on steroids.
HOW DID YOU DECIDE TO START A BUSINESS?
When I was working at a restaurant in Hillsdale NY, I met my husband to be. I did not know how to express myself to him, so I baked him our Vanilla Walnut Crescents. Those are some tasty cookies, and my intentions were clear. He is actually the one who originally said that we should look into producing our products on a larger scale.
HOW ARE THE CRACKERS MADE?
We attempt to source as many local ingredients as possible. Many of the best ingredients are not produced near to us, but we do try. We work in small by wholesale bakery standards. For example, Tate's (a cookie brand) makes about 1 million cookies a week, and we do about 1 to 2 percent of that, or about 10-20 thousand.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE?
That we are up against are the volatility of food pricing as of late, but we still want to charge a reasonable price for our products. That is a struggle.
FAVORITE PART OF THE BUSINESS?
The reaction we get when sampling our cookies. My husband calls it the "time machine". People will say "my grandmother or aunt or sister used to make cookies like this" and we can see that they are transported to a really happy memory. We think that's pretty cool.
