Sackville Bakery Can Meet North American Demand For Vegan Cookies With $180,000 Investment
SACKVILLE – Kookie Kutter Bakery, which opened more than 25 years ago, has moved to a bigger location and invested in advanced manufacturing capacity to help it fulfill orders for its vegan cookies in Canada and the U.S.
Kookie Kutter has grown organically over the years, but it’s now ready to expand in a bigger way.
“We have big ambitions, and the investment that we had made was actually a new, larger facility and new equipment, and a bit more automation in the bakery,” said Richard Tower, a partner in the business.
The company invested over $1-million in the improvements, he said, with $180,000 of the funding provided by Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and Opportunities New Brunswick.
Best known for its ginger snaps cookies, Kookie Kutter makes products that are vegan and uses eight simple ingredients that are free of peanuts, dairy, and eggs.
“A lot of our current customers are grocery [stores], we see opportunities now with the increased capacity for institutional. Because this is a healthy snack…So we see opportunities to serve hospitals or schools or nursing homes,” Tower said.
The bakery opened its new, larger space in a repurposed fire hall on Main St., Sackville, about a month ago. At 3,000 square feet, the building is twice as large as the original bakery on Lorne St.
The new machinery, which includes cutting machines and ovens, has also arrived from Italy. The equipment will allow the company to boost production by about seven times.
“At our previous facility, the max capacity we would do would be about a million pounds of cookies a year,” said Tower. “[This] gives us the production capacity to grow to approximately seven million pounds.”
The new equipment also has different molds, which allows the bakery to make new products like Christmas tree cookies that are available at Costco for the holiday season.
The increased capacity will enable Kookie Kutter to expand its reach significantly across Canada and in the New England states, and grow the business up to 10 times more, says Tower.
Kookie Kutter’s cookies are available at 150 locations in Atlantic Canada, including at Costco and Sobeys stores, and 75 independent locations in the New England states.
The cookies proved popular in Ontario, too, after test sales at Costco locations there last Christmas. But the old facility could not meet demand when Costco asked Kookie Kutter to supply three of its Ontario locations.
Tower said Kookie Kutter had also been approached by large U.S. buyers but didn’t have the capacity to meet the demand.
This investment will enable them to approach those buyers and serve new markets in Canada. It will also lead to the creation of up to eight jobs over five years, adding to Kookie Kutter’s 14 staff members currently.
“The automation allows us to increase capacity. But we need more people to help out with packaging, warehousing, shipping, those sorts of roles,” Tower said. “One component was automated with the cookie-cutter…we are still investing in our employees.”
Inda Intiar is a reporter for Huddle. Send her story suggestions: [email protected]