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GEDDES--Corso's Cookies, an eight-year-old company that manufactures custom-decorated cookies and cookie bouquets, is preparing to launch a new division in March or April to handle large-quantity orders.
The pursuit of the new division followed a call from a representative from a large, well-known retailer in the middle of 2008, recalls Peter Hess, co-owner of Corso's Cookies. His wife, Tina Corso-Hess, owns 51 percent of the company, which is certified as a New York State woman-owned business enterprise.
The retailer, which Hess declined to name, sells decorated cookies during the major holidays and observances, such as Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine's Day. Cookie-makers in China have been providing the products, but, after the wheat-gluten scare, the retailer wanted to start buying all of its food products domestically, according to Hess.
The retailer asked Corso's Cookies to handle the orders.
Hess says he wondered why the company would be asking his small business for the supplies.
"The reality is there's only a handful of companies in the world that do decorated cookies in large volume," Hess says, noting he's only aware of one other company in the U.S.--Monaco Baking Co. of Santa Fe Springs, Calif.--making decorated cookies.
He notes that Corso's Cookies, within the last year, has started producing orders of 25,000 cookies annually for ProFlowers.com--an online retailer selling flowers, plants, and gifts. But the larger, national retailer was looking for quantities of 75,000 to 100,000 cookies annually with four different designs per holiday or observance.
"That's a big step up," Hess says.
The company spent much of 2009 looking at ways to automate, simplify, and...