Some time around 2012 I was contacted by a guy, after he had come across my cookie batter pages.
He introduced himself in a very firm and abrupt manner. A manner I would normally call 'not overtly pleasant'.You would be hard pressed to call him a 'listener'. He was out and out a talker, obviously used to telling people how things were going be and what he wanted to happen.
He had no bones telling me that he wanted to order massive amounts (of cookie batters) and then export them to Mexico, and when things took off in Mexico (there were apparently no doubt in his mind. I can only wonder if he'd given it much thought?), then he wanted to move the entire production to Mexico.
He didn't like it when I told him "Thanks, but no thanks". How rude it was for someone to deny him his ways, I suppose? I tried to explain to him that I was not interested in 'going big', as he called it. That - going big - happens all the time and seldom very successfully, except if the concept of corporate greed, earnings and profits is the only thing that drives you. With me, I have no interest in greed and exponential profits. I'm in it for the pleasure of doing it, and diversity of menu products is a key factor. Doing only cookie batters would turn me into a robot in no time and the moment you let robots do the job, quality and emotional attachment and pride goes down the drain.
The only way of staying true to your roots, to quality, and having good rapport with your customer base, is to make small batches, hand crafted, of products that are cared for and genuinely crafted with emphasis on quality.
Every business graveyard is littered with companies that wanted to 'go big' and totally lost track of what made them popular in the first place, lost all customer goodwill in their pursuit of greed and the hunt for ever increasing corporate profits.
I've spent more than 35 years in this industry, with better credentials and education than virtually anyone else. I know the all the potholes in the road, despite what all the Einsteins' believe. There are a lot of head-stones with 'Einstein' engraved, in that cemetery.
How many BIG companies in food production would YOU associate with expert craftsmanship and high quality: Wonderbread? Gate Gourmet? Tim Hortons? Nabisco? Nestle? Ya, exactly. All of them are raking in the profit on what I would genuinely call crap, in lieu of another word that starts with
GARB _ _ _ and ends with _ _ _ _AGE
So! I'll stay small. Stay proud (for a very good reason), keep making quality in small, hand crafted, cared for batches. I'm not the greedy type...and I never liked Tijuana, anyways.
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