Founded in Aug. 2023, BAKR spent its first full year expanding its SKU count from one to five — including Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk, Gooey Butter Cake, Double Fudge Brownie, S’mores, and Cinnamon Roll Snickerdoodle — and setting up a presence in the Midwest, Ryan told FoodNavigator-USA during a Startup Spotlight interview.
Each cookie dough is formulated with butter, unbleached flour, cane sugar and Fair Trade Certified chocolate, she explained.
“I have always had a passion for baking, but as I looked at the ready-to-bake cookie dough options, I realized that 98% use palm oil in the place of butter,” Ryan elaborated.
“There is also a lot of innovation in the storefront level of retail cookie shops” but no one is “bringing that same cookie energy to the grocery store,” she added.
Also, BAKR provides a permissible indulgence format, with its resealable pouch and easy-to-bake format, she added.
“Two other consumer trends that we have also been seeing is first is single serve. So really, that has allowed consumers to resonate with our resealable pouch because they can just bake one at a time or two, and they do not have to have an occasion or bake a ton of cookies whenever they want that little bit of indulgence,” Ryan said.
She added, “The last trend that we have really seen is around convenience. I feel like all of us see all these amazing cookie recipes on TikTok and Instagram, but who has the time to make those. And so really for BAKR what we want to do is do all the work for you and take the complexity out of baking.”
Securing a co-manufacturing deal can be ‘a chicken or the egg’ situation
Like many startups, BAKR partnered with a co-manufacturer to expand from its start at the Chicago-based CPG incubator the Hatchery into over 400 retail stores, including Meijer and Mariano’s stores in the Midwest, Ryan said.
Securing a co-manufacturer can be “a chicken or the egg” situation, where a CPG brand might not have enough existing scale to meet a co-manufacturer’s minimum order quantity, but the company might need that quantity to grow its business, Ryan explained. This is why startups need to find a co-manufacturer that believes in their mission and will work with them to build their brand, she added.
“If you can have them believe in the product and believe in what you are trying to grow, then they can be a great partner for that growth,” she elaborated.
Ryan spent “endless hours” testing products coming off the production line to ensure quality, while also tracking how ingredients were brought into the facility and how products were packaged to find manufacturing efficiencies.
“The other thing — as you continue to scale — is ensuring right product quality with that scaling. And so that is the number one, most important thing to me is making sure that my product continues to exceed consumer expectations, and that we continue to improve every day. And so, for me, what that looks like is being really involved in our manufacturing processes,” Ryan said.
