25 years on, it’s still Cookie Time
By mid-afternoon the dairies had been cleaned out of the cookies and Mayell, 21 at the time, was back at the bakery that week to cook up another storm. He sold 5000 cookies the first week. The first years sales hit $240,000 and in the following years sales kept doubling.
Cookie Time was on the road — and has not really looked back since growing from zero to $19 million turnover in 25 years.
Mayell takes pride in the survival of his snacks business when so many food products come and go.
He has introduced new products which have flopped, but his chocolate chip cookie has had a 25-year shelf life that few would have predicted and made him a millionaire at 32, a couple of years off his youthful goal of 30.
The tale of this small business made good is one not of luck but of hard graft, setting goals and focusing on achieving them.
Mayell, one of the countrys best known entrepreneurs, chewed through a lot of petrol back then, visiting 71 dairies, 70 of which said they would try selling the cookies. He approached more than half a dozen bakeries before he found one which would rent him space at night. He has been grateful since to baker Paul Horniblow who gave him that break.
The idea came from the United States where Mrs Fields hot chocolate chip cookies had taken off and Mrs Fields stores were popping up all over the show. Every self-respecting American mum had a chocolate chip cookie recipe and Mayell asked one of his friends there to send him one.
He had been working over there promoting and marketing skiing and saved $10,000 which he used to try two other failed entrepreneurial ideas before having a crack at the cookie business.
Months later, Mayell was joined in the business by younger brother Guy.
The firms frontman, Mayell describes their partnership as complementary. He has his head in the clouds while Guys got his feet on the ground. It has worked well for them.
A couple of times during our history we were actually technically insolvent and it was only through the good grace of suppliers that we kept going.
Mayell enjoys the storytelling. Believe it or not, the famous chocolate chip cookie was seen as a health food when it was launched in 1983 because it contained fresh eggs and flour.
What was the secret of success for a small business which has become almost an institution in the snacks market?
Mayell says firstly the quality of the product is one of the key reasons for its survival. The cookies have just the right amount of chocolate and are made of ingredients you would have in your cupboard at home. They contain no artificial flavourings or preservatives and it shows in a superior taste, he says. Price is way down the list of considerations. The cookie had to be delicious to succeed.
In 1983 there was little in between a chocolate bar and a pie or a filled roll that could be bought at a dairy or a service station. His chocolate chip cookie filled a gap. Although sweet, it was seen as a food whereas a confectionery bar was not.
Selling them in a glass cookie jar, blown on the West Coast, placed on the dairy or service station counter was a stroke of marketing genius. It made the product look international in 1983. The cookies were the right idea at the right time.
For a food business distribution can be tricky, especially if the distributor is selling competing products. Cookie Time overcame that by developing a system of franchised distributors dedicated to Cookie Time products. The 45 distributors get a cut of the sales to retailers. Each week they visit between 100 and 150 customers to replenish stocks which means the product remains fresh.
Over the years Cookie Time has launched dozens of new products but none comes anywhere near the success of the original chocolate chip cookie, except for One Square Meal, a health bar introduced in 2005.
I think that product could carry on for 20 years. It was eaten by a lot of sports people. But the original cookie remains the top seller for Cookie Time.
Other products introduced over the years were Christmas Cookies, which sell in buckets, distributed by students. The buckets of cookies sell for $14. Christmas cookies were the solution to the worrying fall in sales they noticed each December, with sales not getting back to normal until April. They put that down to less buying of cookies and similar food in the summer and came up with the Christmas product.
Mayells restless energy saw him successfully tackle IT products. Several years ago he set up another company, TeleMessenger, which has developed IT services. One is Aristotle, a web and phone-based personal development programme he launched with his wife Melanie in 2005 which will call you up each day if you want and encourage and cajole you as well as play you inspirational messages from prominent people.
Mayell is into personal development and goal setting to achieve what you want in life and is a firm believer that out of crises come solutions which can prove beneficial for a small firm.
In 1987, four years after founding the business, he took 18 months out to travel, including completing a personal development course in the United States where he met Melanie, also from Christchurch. During that time Guy ran the business and paid him $600 a week as a way of buying 50% of the business.
His second IT business is Springdoo which allows you to send a voice message via email and was sold to a British buyer last year and is listed on Britains alternative share market.
Another, Santacall, is a service aimed at children and families where a pre-recorded and voice-prompted Santa asks children over the phone what they want for Christmas, records their replies and then sends the recording to parents. This Christmas, Santacall recorded 20,000 requests.
Theres no thoughts of selling up though hes had about half a dozen approaches to buy over the years, seriously considered one but the price was not good enough.
On a really good day we could have sold the company for a couple of million, he says.
Business owners will, like he did, go through phases of waning enthusiasm for a business they have created.
The firm celebrates its 25th with a party next weekend with events and cookies at 1983 prices at the Templeton factory, 15km south of Christchurch.
