Bennett St Dairy is primarily a cafe business that offers farm-to-plate food options with fresh seasonal produce. But, after a successful few years of making its mark on the Sydney cafe scene, it’s now selling its famous cookie dough direct to consumers and through a partnership with Woolworths. Inside FMCG talks to co-founders James Meek and Cliff Baskin about how the business has evolved. Inside FMCG: Tell us the story of Bennett Street Dairy and how it began. James Meek: The cafe Bennett St
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Bennett St Dairy is primarily a cafe business that offers farm-to-plate food options with fresh seasonal produce. But, after a successful few years of making its mark on the Sydney cafe scene, it’s now selling its famous cookie dough direct to consumers and through a partnership with Woolworths. Inside FMCG talks to co-founders James Meek and Cliff Baskin about how the business has evolved.Inside FMCG: Tell us the story of Bennett Street Dairy and how it began.James Meek: The cafe Bennett St Dairy was born from a shared vision, concept, and desire to make a mark on Sydney’s cafe scene. Within the first year of opening, we began making thick and gooey choc-chip cookies. These cookies soon became a cult favourite, first in Bondi and then quickly throughout Sydney, selling well over 400 cookies every week. With the cafe business growing and expanding, we opened our second venue. Our dream was well and truly coming to life.How did the cookie dough business begin? How did the recipe for the cookies first come about and what makes them a cult product among your customers?Cliff Baskin: In March 2020, following lockdown orders, both our venues were closed, and we were scrambling for ideas. We cleared out our food prep fridges and came across 100kgs of cookie dough, waiting to be shaped and moulded into delicious cookies. Rather than throwing it out, we casually decided to put it up on Instagram to see if anyone was interested in buying it. We were hoping to put a few more dollars in our back pocket in preparation for the upcoming financial uncertainty. Before we knew it, we had sold out within two hours. JM: People are searching for an at-home experience. We have made it super easy to bake the cookies and fill the house with a delicious scent that tastes just as good.Given the rapid success of the cookie dough, how did you change the business to keep up with demand?CB: The pivot in our business happened because of quick thinking. The cookie already had a strong following, so when the pandemic hit, it seemed like a no-brainer to try to off-load the dough within its 12-week shelf-life. The kitchen wasn’t operating due to the lockdown. All we were selling was coffee and cookie dough, so we had the ability to make all the dough on premises, which allowed us to keep our staff employed. JM: At first, we didn’t have an online store set up, and people were messaging us on Instagram with orders. We tried to make the cookie dough deliveries on our own; however, due to high demand, we started to use the Circuit app. We eventually rented the space next door to our Blair St cafe. Now, with our incredible Woolworths deal and other distribution channels on the horizon, we have also secured premises in Mt Kuring-gai, where we can continue our cookie dough operations. This allows us to focus on organic marketing via our social channels, specifically Instagram, which we have curated. After two years of Covid-19, how would you describe the food and beverage landscape now? How has the hospitality industry managed since then?CB: From what we can tell in our suburban cafes, customer habits and confidence are slowly returning to normal. In regards to managing the businesses, staff shortages are making life very difficult. It sounds like it must have been a steep learning curve for you guys to go from being a cafe to a food manufacturer. What were some of the most valuable lessons you’ve learnt in the past couple of years in that regard?CB: Yes, a very steep learning curve indeed. When you start to produce anything in volume, all small changes make a huge difference; for example, when we began selling the dough, we would simply print out some labels at the local Officeworks and attach them to the dough with a rubber band. Now, our labels are double- and triple-checked before we send them off to print. Making an error on 30,000 labels can be a costly mistake. In saying that, some of the same principles from our cafe still apply to our cookie dough business. The largest of which is customer satisfaction. As with any of the food or coffee served in our cafe, unless the customer is 100 per cent happy with our product, we offer them a replacement or refund. Dough sticks on sale at a Woolworths supermarket.Tell me about some of the cool collaborations you’ve done with brands like Darrell Lea and Ben & Jerry’s.JM: Our latest and one of the most exciting, unreal and successful announcements has been launching Bennett St Dairy cookie doughs into over 600 Woolworths stores nationwide during Covid lockdowns. We also recently collaborated with Darrell Lea for Valentine’s Day, which was a spectacular fit. We’ve collaborated with Ben & Jerry’s, too, with more exciting retailers and collabs on the horizon.What are some of your plans for expanding this side of the business and where would you like it to go?CB: I love running cafes, but you can only serve so many people, no matter how hard you work. But with the cookie dough, there’s no limit. Recently, we’ve just started creating frozen cookie pucks which are ready to go to cafes.
