The Cookie Department

Bringing In The New Year With KETO!

founder @ The Cookie Department

Published on Dec 27, 2019

We have much to be thankful for, among which is the ability to change course to ensure optimal success. As the saying goes, “when you’re not growing you’re dying”, and although we’ve spent years trying to compete in the functional cookie space, we have encountered some growth inhibiting challenges. Among them has been the growing customer demand for lower sugar, lower carbohydrate cookie options. So, on August 19th we launched two Ketogenic friendly, gluten free cookies that contain only 1 gram of sugar and 3-4 net carbs.

Since launching our keto line our online sales are up 91%, our amazon sales are up 400% and we’ve been growing at an average of 2 new independent retail stores per day. Since launching, our two keto SKUs have outsold our five classic SKUs 3-1, and October and November were our best selling months of 2019, with 73% of those sales coming from the keto cookies. As markets like Whole Foods and Safeway are beginning to dedicate entire aisles to ketogenic friendly products, and “ketogenic” was the number one google searched diet of 2018 and 2019 with projections for the industry to exceed $366 bn within the next several years, we’ve decided to phase out production of the classic line, and reformulate the best selling flavors to better appeal to our low sugar customers. 


In addition, we will be launching two new Keto flavors by the end of Q2 of 2020. Below please find recent growth updates:

National chains:

KETO Launch in 7- Eleven:

  • Northern CA region launched 11/11/2019 and already placed their third order.
  • North West region launches 1/13/2020 and they have already ordered.
  • We have approached 7-Eleven about launching in Southern CA in Q1.

GNC:

  • We’ve received official notice of our launch with GNC into 185 of their corporate stores across California, New York, Maryland and DC with our KETO cookies. They have ordered 11,520 cookies for delivery in February for launch in March. They will also be available on GNC.COM. GNC has 8000+ stores in total. If the test goes well they will continue putting our product into more stores.

Smoothie King: A franchised company with 980+ retail smoothie bars.

  • 55 store KETO test, if successful, we’ll have access to all 980+ domestic locations through third party nutrition based distributors. We’re already set to work with one of their main distributors, Muscle Foods USA who will distribute to the test stores. This is on track to launch by February. 

Nekter Juice Bar: 150 juice bars

  • Currently running a 90 day test in five of their top locations in Southern Ca. If after 90 days we run a successful test, they will mandate our KETO cookies into their 150 stores nationwide.

Crunch Fitness:

  • Rolling into 6 Pacific Northwest locations starting in January with KETO cookies.

NYB Distributors: 5000 stores in East Coast

  • Received first purchase order for NY warehouse of 1 KETO pallet and launching with them in 1st week of January.

Keto Subscription Boxes:

- We’ve been featured in The Keto Box with 8500 new keto consumers getting to sample our cookies. They have already committed to featuring our third keto cookie which is in the works for their March box.  This box has generated 20 new D2C online customers so far. 

  • The Good Grocer has shipped our cookies to 7,040 keto consumers and we will be a featured brand in 2020 as well.
  • Keto Delivered ordered this month for 432 keto consumers.
  • Ketogenic.com launched a new subscription box and we are the featured cookie for their December/January box for 1000 keto customers.  We will also be a featured product in their new 2020 online retail store. 

E-commerce Retailers:

- Netrition.com launched last in November with KETO cookies

  • bodybuilding.com launches in January with KETO cookies and will enable us to offer our cookies to online customers outside of the United States.  
  • Amazon Prime - Up 400% on Amazon sales under Amazon’s Choice Products
  • TheCookieDepartment.com - Up 91% in e-commerce sales.


Grocery/ Convenience:

- After a year and a half of working to get into New Seasons and New leaf, our 2 keto SKUs will be on shelves in all 26 stores in January.

  • Plaid Pantry is in-process of transitioning from carrying our classic line to our keto line in all 108 stores. This will go into effect February 1st.
  • A majority of our existing retailers have either transitioned to carrying our keto line, and/or will carry our reformulated classic line one they have been completed.

New Sale Channels:

  • We’re in talks for international distribution to the Australian market.
  • Currently reviewing a potential license opportunity for the keto line in Germany.