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I know, we don’t look that old do we?... but it’s true... February 2008 marks 25 years since a 21 year old ‘kid’ called Michael Mayell mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookies in his one-bedroom flat (the first Cookie Time headquarters) and managed to convince dairies in Christchurch to sell them from the big glass cookie jars he’d had made. Cookie Time was born!
It’s been a fun, exciting ride since those early days in 1983. Over the years Cookie Time steadily built a reputation for entreprenuerial spirit and great tasting products, leading to being recently selected by an independent panel of experts as one of “New Zealand’s most loved brands” in a book called ‘New Zealand’s favourite Brands, an insight into some of NZ’s most iconic brands’.
Michael and his brother Guy still own the company today. When you look at what’s on the shelves these days it’s good to know there are still family owned Kiwi companies producing good old homestyle products. |
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And surprisingly, things haven’t really changed that much since the early days. New Zealand’s most popular individually wrapped cookie, the Original Chocolate Chunk, is made to the same recipe that Michael began with 25 years ago.
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There are plenty of interesting stories about the past 25 years of Cookie Time. Such as how the size of the Cookie Time cookie came about (there was no money to buy machinery in the early days so the cookie dough was put onto baking trays using an ice cream scoop - the resulting size was so popular it stayed). Or why the chunks of chocolate are the size they are - using the same ‘number eight wire’ approach as a result of no money, Michael used an old bacon slicer and put kingsized blocks of chocolate through it - again the result worked so well that became the Cookie Time chocolate chunk size from then on.
And did you realise that Cookie Time cookies are still individually hand crafted like they were in the old days? That’s why they all look slightly different from each other (the uniformity of biscuits lack personality in our opinion!
Cookie Time has a unique culture based on trust and respect, hard work and plenty of fun. |
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It’s not uncommon for marketing meetings to be held in a spa pool (agenda items laminated and floated from one person to another... a literal expression of ‘floating an idea’!), or for practical jokes to be played on staff by the owners (like introducing ‘new’ staff members with ‘unusual’ habits), or for conferences to be held in places such as Punga Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound or up in the mountains beyond Queenstown.
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Entrepreneurial spirit is at the heart of the company culture. Cookie Time invented product-based school fundraising in New Zealand back in 1989 with a programme called the ‘9-Day Fundraising Programme’ (a system soon copied by companies selling chocolate and other products), and also created the High Schools Business Challenge to encourage youth to turn entreprenuerial thinking into real business success.
The company is still closely connected with education through the work of the Cookie Munchers Charitable Trust. The Trust was set up to help ‘New Zealand kids discover their gifts’ and, championed by Cookie Time co-owner Guy, who dedicates pretty much all of his time nowadays to the running of the charitable trust, the Trust works closely with the cause of dyslexia.
So next time you bite into a Cookie Time cookie, remember you’re tasting a little piece of a classic Kiwi success story, beginning in the early 80’s with a couple of young brothers who matched a bright idea with hard work and passion, and turned it into a quarter of a century of entrepreneurial success, delicious products and a lot of fun. |
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