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December 14, 2009

Making fortunes

Photo/Courtesy David Francis Cindy and David Francis
By Mercedes Grandin

A conversation with Cindy and David Francis, co-owners of Fantastic Fortunes Gourmet Cookies in York

Founded: May 2009
Employees: 0
Startup costs: $20,000
Projected revenue, year one: $45,000
Projected revenue, year two: $300,000
Contact: 363-1673
78 Long Sands Road, York
www.fantasticfortunecookies.com

What is Fantastic Fortunes Gourmet Cookie Co.?

We make specialty gourmet cookies in the shape of a fortune cookie. We have three products, two are fortune cookies: one we call “The Giant,” which is about the size of a grapefruit and comes in a clear plastic, Chinese-takeout style box that retails for $12.95. The second product is called our “Mini,” which is also a fortune cookie the size of a navel orange and is packaged in a bag with a ribbon for $4.95. The third product we have is called “The Dippers” and that’s a flat cookie designed for dipping into coffee or tea and they come five in a bag for $5.95.

Why did you start this company?

Cindy owned her own company in the interior design business in Maine for quite some time and always wanted to provide her clients with a unique and handmade thank-you gift at the end of a project. She was playing around with the idea of fortune cookies and decided it would be fun to make a special custom fortune cookie and dip it in chocolate and put some interesting toppings on it. Her client loved it and wanted to make some for her friends. She also gave some to the kids to give to their teachers, so it started like that.

What made you take the business to the next level?

Our first customers were area hospitals and local companies, so we sold some stock orders to those outlets and then wanted to see if we could also get a re-order; within the first week we had several customers call back to re-order. So we continued and added some additional locations and got up to about 10 customers and also did some weddings and bat mitzvahs. Right now we’re working on an order for 600 customized corporate gifts with custom fortunes, packaging and logos.

How do you market your business?

We hired a public relations firm and she’s been doing a tremendous job helping us to get press in Yankee magazine and a feature in the food section of the Portland Press Herald and numerous other outlets so that’s been great. We just finished filming an episode of New Hampshire “Chronicles.“ We’ve been making sales calls directly to gift stores and specialty stores where we thought our product would be well received. Our website has been helpful as well.

How did you finance this business?

We’re self-financed through personal savings.

What’s been the biggest challenge running this business?

The biggest challenge at this point has been making enough product, so we’re trying to balance the need to produce product faster and still maintain a very high level of quality and consistency that our customers are so excited about. We can only automate this business so much — it’s a very handmade, gourmet specialty product.

What’s been successful about your business strategy?

The thing that was most successful was that we gave ourselves six months to really test the market and test our products in a variety of different retail stores. We initially made 500 cookies per week and kept our costs low. We also went to the Fancy Food Show in New York and saw people who are in the specialty foods business and got a sense of how they were doing business, setting up distribution and packaging their product. We got a lot of valuable knowledge and experience from that and since then we’ve been accepted into the Fancy Food Organization and we’ll be exhibiting at the Fancy Food Expo this spring.

What are your goals for the future of this business?

Our short-term goal is to fill out our marketing plan for the five New England states that would include a niche market in hospital gift stores — there are 150 hospitals we’re going to visit and talk to about our product over the next year. We plan on going to bridal shows that will be starting in the next couple of months. Our goal in the next year is to have roughly 300-400 stores that we’ll be selling our product to in addition to the corporate, wedding and special occasions markets. In the next three to five years we’d be looking to expand beyond New England into other markets.

Interview by Mercedes Grandin

 

New Ventures profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to editorial@mainebiz.biz.

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