Posted by www.TheMauiCookieLady.com
FB- The Maui Cookie Lady
IG- MauiCookieLady
Fresh and perfectly prepared seafood, pineapple, papayas, poi, coconut, rice and Huli Huli chicken may be what people think of when they think of Maui and Hawaiian food however, one of the prized treats of Maui comes exclusively from the Maui Cookie Lady (MCL). The cookies produced by founder Mitzi Toro and her Cookie Elves, have become an international sensation since she first started producing them in 2012. The treats were originally produced in a fund-raising effort by Mitzi to support medical staff who cared for her father while in the hospital at the end of his life. What started as an effort sold at a small street fair to support the nurses who cared for her family to celebrate his life turned into a world class business.
Meet Mitzi Toro, the Founder of the Maui Cookie Lady (MCL). Mitzi’s application of the CHARM DANCE principles has made her successful with a product of her passion with the resulting business continues to grow without limits. From the fund raiser to today she has dedicated herself to the principle to reach people and to “make the world a smaller place one cookie at a time.” Her business journey began with the support of the Shared Use Facilities (SUF)-,the Maui Food Innovation Center (MFIC) and Mitzi is a graduate of the Food Innovation Center’s X-celerator for “foodpreneurs” on the island of Maui.
In 2017 Mitzi was chosen as Hawaii’s Most Successful Female Entrepreneur, and if she continues to work the principles of CHARM DANCE her success is “half baked“with better things to come!(Half-Baked is part of the name of her top selling cookie, which is a clear reflection of the fact that she is just beginning.)
Today her cookies are coveted by Hollywood stars and influencers. Many who have gone to extremes to get her cookies and to meet Mitzi and her Cookie Elves. The desire for her cookies is so great that Ludacris (award winning rapper and actor) chartered a helicopter to fly from Honolulu to Maui after a concert to get cookies and visit the bakery. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one of her greatest fans, in fact Mitzi has developed a chocolate chip cookie named “The Rock” after him. Other celebrities have gone to great extents to enjoy her cookies in Maui and around the world. These fans include Snoop Dogg, Cardi B and Sublime who had their management company include MCL cookies in their suites for enjoyment during their stay in the islands.
Today Mitzi, a self-described shy misfit in high school,ships cookies across the USA, Canada, Australia, Mexico, much of the EU, Doha, and Qatar.
Much of her success is built upon her charismatic and charming personality, and the balance of her success can be attributed to her vision of the market and her entrepreneurial drive.
Mitzi, a schoolteacher by education,has overcome and over powered her shyness. She has become a celebrity in her own right. This once shy girl has turned into a leading entrepreneur that has been featured on Good Morning America, ABC News &launched her products on the QVC National Network in August 2020.
You may wonder, what is the competitive or comparative advantage on a cookie produced in Maui?How can someone produce a cookie on an island that is craved and sold all over the world?
Most of the ingredients in her cookies are shipped via ocean into Maui. Even the sugar is imported as the last production of commercial sugar in Maui ended with the last sugar mill in Hawaii’s final harvest in December 2016. Other key ingredients – flour, chocolate, vanilla, etc. are all shipped into Maui despite Mitzi’s desire and efforts to support local agricultural businesses.
People have an image of Hawaii that they want to last long after the leave the island. When they return home they don’t want to bring their family a souvenir, often produced in China that will collect dust until they forget about it. In stand they want the taste of Maui, to share with their family and friends. Understanding the Market – the M in CHARM DANCE – MCL aggressively promotes their local procurement of ingredients as illustrated by this statement:
“Proudly Sourced Hawaii Products Used in our Cookies When Available: Maui Gold Pineapple, Waihe’e Valley Macadamia Nuts, Hawaiian Sea Salt, Maui Brewing Company Island Brewed Coconut Hiwa Porter, Sammy Hagar’s Beach Bar Macadamia Nut Rum by Hali’imailie Distilling Company, Lilikoi (Passion Fruit) from Haiku.”
While these can be considered key marketing ingredients, they are a small percentage of the total product as many of the largest volume ingredients flour, sugar, chocolate, Oreo’s etc. are all sourced from production off the island.
Mitzi and her team apply all aspects of the CHARM DANCE style to their everyday business. However, in this case study we will emphasize two aspects:
A– Appropriate and consistent quality – without a consistent quality sales are not sustainable.
M– Markets – You must be a student of the market. Demand is the driver of the economy and it is communicated to the markets through the interaction with consumers and sellers.
I could easily write a study on her ability to communicate (she has 90,000 followers on Instagram and her website is one of the top websites in Hawaii (https://www.themauicookielady.com) or to I could write about her Network (including influencers) or her execution, (her success would be short-lived if she didn’t execute flawlessly)however, for this case study we will focus on A & Mof CHARM DANCE as these are two elements that she does to consistently to perfection.
Her cookies can be reverse engineered by large companies and some of her recipes have been shared online, and she has given many hints at baking cookies on various television interviews. It is not difficult for a baker to determine what is in a cookie and you cannot vary too much on technique of baking them. These factors lend themselves well to production in cheaper locations:
Labor – Maui has a high labor rate due to the strong (pre-BCE2 (Before Covid Era)) due to the strong tourist-based economy.
Ingredients – freight to Maui is high due to the ocean freight rates to get most ingredients to Maui.
Rent –Rental rates in Maui are high due to the strong demand for property resulting in a high cost of living for locals supporting the tourism industry and other businesses.
Production with state-of-the-arts equipment could lower the cost of production, but the Maui Cookie Lady is dedicated to production by hand in small batches.
These factors cover just about every element of the cost of production – land, labor, and capital (rent and equipment). There is no competitive or comparative economic advantage for The Cookie Lady to produce in Hawaii. Yet her volumes have grown every month since starting her business. In fact, demand has often exceeded production. This fact keeps the premium high for her product, people are not buying it because it is the cheapest cookie, but because it is the best and often most difficult to buy due to limited supply. Using limited availability can be a strategic move to keep the price high by limiting supply versus demand.This strategy only works when you, the producer, can control supply, and your product is different from all competition. These factors resulting in the only place you can get this cookie, or anything like it, is from the Maui Cookie Lady. This ability to keep price high by controlling supply only happens when you can answer the question “why in the world would anyone buy my product,” with your answer is the fact that you are the only place that they can get the product and they demand the original!
Despite not having taken a cooking class,Mitzi and her crew have mastered their quality control. They understand and apply the first “A” in CHARM DANCE – A– Appropriate and consistent quality.
To produce the “appropriate quality” you must know what that definition is by knowing what your customer demand. The MCL team has clearly identified their customer. They have a profile of their consumers. When asked about the profile of their customer Mitzi tells stories of a broad customer base from tourists, foodies who have never been to Maui and even body builders (Beyond The Rock).
She states:
We are in a unique situation where our customer is a broad range. Oddly enough some of our best repeat customers are actually quite fit. There are a lot of body builders that buy our cookies for the concept called a “Cheat Meal” or “Cheat Day”.
I am by no means a body builder, however, having recently taken up exercise after a hiatus of several years after back surgery, I truly appreciate and understand the “Cheat Day” concept and am known to pull my favorite Maui Cookie Lady cookie out of the freezer and enjoy it on my Cheat Day!
Mitsi also gives the following examples:
“A man in New Jersey eats three cookies a day and works out two hours a day. He takes photos pumping iron, our cookies and muscle milk. He orders between 50-80 at a time. Owns a pizza shop and stores the cookies in the walk freezer of his shop. He also is a super customers.
There is another customer in Delaware that makes videos with our cookies and posts them on social media. I believe food has its own unique customer and following. We have an easy product for people to fall in love with. Our cookies are fun, adventurous and gives a moment of bliss and even more so now as life can be depressing with the pandemic. I do not think we would have the same affect if we sold window blinds.”
MCL “designs” their cookies to appeal to the profile of their target customer. In fact, each cookie that they sell has an appeal to a certain buyer profile.
For example,
Pineapple Lychee Passion w/ Hibiscus Flower & White Tea cookie appeals to visitors to Maui who want to bring something special home to their family or friends.
Grown-Up Samoa’s with Maui Brewing Companies Coconut Porter – is an adult cookie. Who does not love the Samoa sold by Girl Scouts? MCL has made good even better by adding crystalized porter from Maui Brewing Company. This not only appeals to a wide audience but the co-branding with Maui Brewing leverages the marketing efforts through the Networking CHARM DANCE characteristic.
Da Half Baked – which is their best seller is a giant 8 oz chocolate chip cookie stuffed with Reese’s, Snickers &Oreo, and a dab of malt. This cookie appeals to anyone who loves an Oreo, Reese’s, Snickers! The demand for these products are high. They are often the leading global brands in the market in their category, I can buy Oreo’s in every country I have been to, and often buy them to have a taste of home with a consistent quality. Using these already famous products ads to the appeal and consumer confidence in the quality. Using the name “Da Half Baked” provides a local flair, which when coupled with the appeal of a half-baked cookie the combination is unstoppable. Half baked cookies are always better than fully cooked crisp cookies in my diet! How could I not buy a cookie that includes the market leading cookies and candies and is half baked!
Offer consumers new and limited choices the MCL features a number of “Seasonal” specials like the “Oh My Pumpkin Pie” for the thanksgiving season and a seasonal ““RumchataEggNog” and “It’s a Wonderful Whiskey Life” for their Holiday Christmas flavors. This variety provides on-line buyers with a chance to have multiple varieties in the same optimist 6 -8 cookie shipment with different choices the next time they order. The options never get stale!
Consistent quality – The quality control systems in place at MCL are state of the industry standards. They did not stop with minimum requirements of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) but have their own Standard Sanitary Operating Procedures and Quality Control systems in place to ensure sanitation and quality.
The staff’s attention to detail, and the daily involvement of the Owner/Founder ensures that a cookie bought today will be identical, yet unique, to the cookie I bought yesterday or last year. These cookies will be the same when I return to Maui or their buy from their website and have shipped directly to me.
While the appeal of a unique cookie produced in Maui, with a catchy name may be enough to get the consumer to buy a cookie once, if the quality is not good, they will not buy it again. We have all bought something once because of the label and/or marketing appeal (pineapple wine for example) only to find that it does not meet our expectations, so we do not buy it again. A label and price determine if something sells the first time; quality is required to sell it a second time! Likewise, if we buy something and the quality meets or exceeds our expectations the first time but the second time the quality is not what we expected we will not buy it again. If MCL did a “Da Half Baked” cookie which was really “Da Over Baked” cookie we would not buy it a second time even if the brand and marketing were appealing. Quality has to be consistent, and MCL understands this and meets the expectations every time.
A key competitive advantage of MCL’s product is that the product is hand-rolled in small batches, and not produced with big machines. Machines simply do not do it with the care and detail that is accomplished by doing it by hand. The Oreo cookies, Snickers, Reeces and other key ingredients are hand fit into each cookie, as if they are custom made for the each consumer. Mitzi understands that the use of big machines would lower the cost of her production but in the process, it would produce inconsistent cookies and they would lose much of the appeal to her buyers. This attention to details (D in CHARM DANCE) is driven by understanding her customers (2nd C in CHARM DANCE) and creates her own unique competitive advantage and creates repeat customers. In fact at the retail store about 30%of her volume is from repeat customers, this is a huge number when considering that most of her customers don’t have regular return trips to Maui.
M– Markets – to achieve your greatest success you must be a student of the market. Demand is the driver of the economy and demand is communicated to the markets through the interaction with consumers and sellers. Economists and business consultants talk about the “supply chain” however, they would achieve better results by focusing on the demand chain as it all starts with demand, and Mitzi understands the demand of the market.
Mitzi is a student of the market. Costco Maui was an early customer of MCL and when they started sales there Mitzi would personally be involved with distributing samples to customers. This is a role not many CEO’s undertake but through this effort she was face-to-face with consumers as they tried the cookies. By being there Mitzi got their immediate and honest reaction to the cookies. Business leaders who do not face their customers are lacking this connection to the market. The look of satisfaction on a customers’ face when they first bite into a cookie does not show up on the reports, which are often just sales volumes and product mix. With the success of their cookies at Costco and in the broader market, Costco offered Mitzi and her team the opportunity to sell across the Costco network in Hawaii (7 stores). They opted out of that opportunity to control growth and ensure quality control during their growth.
Consumers like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Ludacris can afford to buy anything they want; in fact, they could hire a chef to make the “same” cookies that Mitzi makes. However, her attention to details, her understanding of who the customer is and knowing the market, coupled with her charismatic entrepreneurial drive, keep customers coming back – even if they must charter a helicopter to get there!
MCL does not target the mass market. Her production capacity limits the supply, which also helps keep them an exciting find and the value up. I know when I was on Maui we had to search for her cookies and were thrilled when we got some before they ran out! There are many times of the year when they are sold out of their production capabilities. Sales for the Christmas holiday begin in September to book capacity and prepare for the onslaught of orders.
During the Covid-19 lockdown of Maui in most of 2020 the MCL has seen their online sessions increase 178% to nearly 150,000 sessions in the February 2020 –October 2020 time frame. With an average order value also increasing by 85% that translates into significant web-based growth in a time when tourism has halted the flow of target buyers to their retail outlets in Maui. This resulted in sales growth increases year on year to over 1,800%! Understanding that her customers are web savvyand developing an e-commerce site has leveraged her market exposure and presence.
Many large retailers would love to feature MCL product however realizing that working with the big retailers moved her further away from her principles and her goals,Mitzi focuses on learning her customer and to grow responsibly and within their capabilities.
Mitzi and her team understand their customers, they know who buys their cookies and have developed the formulas and marketing to capitalize upon their knowledge of the market.
By knowing the market,Mitzi applies her love for coming up with new flavors to keep her product mix constantly adjusting to meet market needs, increase repeat customers and surprise her customers with exciting new combinations. Understanding her limitations, and to strengthen the science behind the development and process for her cookies, the MCL has teamed with Rutgers University to conduct research and helping develop the only cookie butters from Hawaii and first tropical cookie butters in the nation.
Sometimes your competitive and comparative advantage is the story behind the product. Couple a good story with an exceptionally unique product and you can set your own standards. If you know the market, produce an appropriate and consistent quality, and pay attention to details, as Mitzi does, you can achieve great success, and in Mitzi’s case enjoy a few thousand cookies along the wayto spreading joy and making the world a smaller place one cookie at a time!
