Susan Nolte shows off her May Cookie Co. line at her Newington office.
Three weeks ago, Susan Nolte sold her first boxes of May Cookie Co. mix to the West Hartford Whole Foods on Raymond Road. She describes this victory as her company’s “underlying goal.”
Cracking the Whole Foods lineup puts her upscale health-conscious cookie mixes in front of an audience she thinks will respond. And it’s the culmination of an uphill fight for a human resources specialist turned entrepreneur.
“I’m just happy it’s taken off and it’s only been two years up and running,” said Nolte, whose variations of whole grain cookie mixes retail for about $8.99 at Whole Foods and include a vegan brand. Nolte says they’re pricey because of the quality of ingredients and detailed packaging steps.
Nolte, who operates from space in Newington, has found that customers are willing to pay for “healthier cookies.”
“When you make cookies, typically you don’t just throw ingredients in a bowl and mix,” she said. “(My) process replicated the process of baking from scratch; somebody just did the measurements for you. There’s lots of cookie mixes out there, but they’re expensive and there’s nothing healthy about them.”
Growth is the order of the day. Her first order from her supplier was about 900 mixes. Now, she says, she’s hired one part-time employee and her latest order was nearly 4,000 mixes
“I started at a tough time with the economy, but it was good. If you can survive during a tough economy, which we are, then the future will be brighter. I’m not selling cars. It’s a high-end food product item, but not something super expensive. It’s an advantage to have that with the economy,” she said.
Nolte worked in a comfortable job in human resources for 12 years before deciding that she wanted the challenge of starting her own business. A self-described “European shopper” who frequents grocery stores daily for fresh items, she has always believed in making conscious food choices. She wondered if cookies could be made any healthier and started experimenting with baking in her kitchen. After giving her recipes to a rotating group of 20-25 taste testing friends, she realized she wanted to go in a slightly different direction.
“I had one of those flashes at 3 a.m. that I want to make and sell mixes. I started prototyping them in my house, and then found a dry mixing company in New York who agreed to work with me,” she said.
Nolte also enrolled in an entrepreneurship program at the University of Hartford, invested $5,500 of her own money in the business and took out a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan with a local bank. She said her SBA loan went through, in large part, because she focused her business plan on tapping into the growing natural health food market. Her first retail sale was to Highland Market in South Windsor, which she said did not produce as many customers as she had hoped.
But Nolte persevered, traveling to specialty food shops, grocery stores and retail chains throughout the state with her samples and mixes. She said she did all her market research online for free.
“I’m not a sales person, but I believe in my product. My first sales really were to consumers through word of mouth, then to businesses as gifts for their employees, and the third was a direct to consumer e-commerce natural product marketplace called Abe’s Market,” she said, noting Abe’s is listed on her Website.
Nolte says she’s proud to be the winner of two awards from the Entrepreneur’s Circle and The Connecticut Specialty Food Association.
These days she keeps busy with a “revolving list” of hundreds of future sales targets.
“My goal is to get into as many kitchens as possible. I want to reach the regional, national and international retail markets and I’m interested in being in the smaller specialty natural food stores just as much,” she said, noting that right now most of her customers remain in Connecticut.
Joanna Smiley, a Hartford area freelancer, writes the weekly Local Interest column for The Hartford Business Journal.
