Who can resist a sweetie after lunch? Paulo Ifran is one of those who do not refuse sweets. Every day, he stops at a store in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, to eat cookies – in the style of American movies. But not everything in life is chocolate: he buys about three cookies at a time, and the cookies are expensive (average R$ 12 per unit), so Paulo’s wife, Natalie Pavan, has an opinion the process of making them. at home to save.
That’s when she heard from her husband that she couldn’t fix the cookies. Indeed, the American cookie recipe is not easy. A cookie needs to be firm and soft at the same time, and still melt in your mouth. It’s hard to get to the right place. But Natalie accepted the challenge: she went to the kitchen to try some recipes she found on the Internet. “I have a law degree, I never studied gastronomy. But I always enjoy sneaking into the kitchen. “
She starts making a new batch every 15 days, always studying the ingredients and changing something from the previous recipe. After two years of testing, voilà: Natalie arrived at a cookie as delicious as the one in the mall. With the approval of the recipe, Natalie decided to give it a special touch and filled the cookies with brigadeiro.
In 2016, she started selling cookies at the school entrance to earn extra money. At the time, Natalie was working as an administrative manager at a satellite TV company. So I will work three times: I spend the day at the company, I leave to do sales, and when I come home at night, I go to the kitchen to make cookies. As the days passed, he realized that he would sell more cookies if the cookies were baked longer. This is where MyCookies was born.
– MyCookies/Data
From schools to franchises
In November 2016, Natalie opened a kiosk in a local supermarket. She didn’t have the money to start the business, so she arranged things: she agreed to pay the first rent within 30 days (usually, the first rent is paid in advance) and pay head to shop.
She even bought a used freezer, wrapped in black plastic to disguise its age, and got an electric oven that only baked eight cookies every 15 minutes. Then , he hired an employee to do part of the time at the kiosk – after all, Natalie is still on the triple, she just changed the point of sale. The family suggested the brand name and the first logo was made on a website that sells ready-made products.
In addition to charging a small price for cookies – each unit costs R$ 3 -, Natalie also created the tradition of leaving handwritten notes on the packaging, with the line “Don’t leave it for happiness tomorrow… Be today” ; it’s a way to personalize the service. And the truth is, it helped MyCookies to gain the favor of candy lovers in Campo Grande. “I started with everything in installments and with the desire to make the business happen. At first, I only sold four cookies, but the customers liked it and in the first month I was able to pay the rent, the money comes from the shop and I have guaranteed the salary for a few more months to the person who is with me”, said the businessman, who is 34 years old.
Four months later, Natalie opened a second unit, inside the store, and hired someone to help make the cookies – she couldn’t buy the ingredients and cook everything herself in the morning. The following year, he resigned as managing director to focus more on his business.
Over time, Natalie realized that it was worth adapting the best cookies to Brazilian tastes, which did not use such sweets. “The original recipe has a very sweet taste. So, I took some of this fat and sugar and took the opportunity to mix the flavors that the customers are most familiar with, like dulce de leche, brigadeiro… I gave the Brazilian cookies. The combination between Brazil and America is so successful that the best-selling flavor is a perfect combination of flavors from both countries: red velvet with local milk brigadeiro.
– MyCookies/Data
In September 2018, she decided to use the franchise model to expand. Today, there are 70 units in seven states (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Goiás, Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul), in addition to the Federal Federation. All have delivery options. To supply the stores, Natalie opened a factory in Campo Grande where 300,000 cookies are produced every month; food items arrived frozen in stores.
The sky is the limit
For this year, the goal is to open 100 franchises and increase revenue from R$ 17 million to R$ 30 million. In January, the businessman invested R$ 100 in machinery and hired and trained new workers to increase the number of products.
In addition to the 18 selection of cookie flavors, whose prices range from R$4.90 to R$10, the company also sells other desserts made from cookies, such as ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cones, milk shakes, “brookie” (a recipe that combines a brownie with a cookie) and even chocolate chip cookie cups that are used to serve coffee.
There’s more to come. Natalie is testing cookie-based protein bars and limited editions with chocolate products in collaboration with other companies. And it is developing a line of frozen cookies for distribution in supermarkets. “To this day, I am the one who creates the recipes. Whenever there is a special day, like Christmas or Valentine’s Day, we launch a limited edition to see how the public will receive it. If the taste is well received, it goes on the fixed menu,” says Natalie, who continues to have Paulo as her main pig. “My husband pays a lot of attention to new recipes [risos].”
What about the personalized messages on the packaging? Resumes, and are handwritten by franchisees. After all, it is one of the recipes for success.
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