"We started to do business with the Price Club and they ordered shortbreads for the Christmas season," she recalled, sitting in her Herring Cove Road bakery. "We had no idea of the volume that they required and we ended up hand rolling and cutting 45,000 shortbread cookies."
That commitment to old-fashioned goodness and quality forms the backbone of her company, Mrs. Beasley's Cookies.
"The Mrs. Beasley in Mrs. Beasley's Cookies is my Mom," she said. "She instilled her passion for baking in me as well as the pleasure that comes from having people enjoy what you bake."
When she started the company, she rented space after hours from an established bakery, doing the baking after the bakery closed for the night. Two years ago, she moved into her current premises and now, her six full time and six part time workers bake 21 different varieties of cookies, using only the finest ingredients and no additives or preservatives.
Mrs. Beasley's cookies are currently available in 30 grocery stores in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as well as Costco, coffee shops, and the IWK Grace Health Centre.
Mrs. Beasley's also participates in a milk and cookie program in city schools, where her old-fashioned ginger snap cookies are the hands-down favorites.
"Our primary strategy for 2001 is to look at expanding into more grocery stores in the rest of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island so that our products will be available in more than 100 grocery stores in the region."
Mrs. Beasley has set her sights on expanding beyond the Maritimes. Last October her company was singled out by Agriculture and Argi-Food Canada for its vision and business plan. This led to an invitation to the Grocery Innovations Canada Show in Toronto where she was able to grow her business into larger markets.
In July she'll be attending the New York Fancy Food Show as part of a Nova Scotian delegation organized by the Taste of Nova Scotia Quality Food Program.
"This will be one of the first steps toward expanding our company into the United States market," she said.
She's now looking at tempting the taste buds of those thousands of Maritimers living in Calgary, Edmonton, and other parts of Alberta with some traditional, down-home cooking. Her strategy for doing this involves developing alliances with commercial bakeries across the country and into the United States which would use her recipes, baking processes, packaging, and labels in order to ensure that the high standards of quality she's established are maintained.
"The resulting growth from these expansions will mean that I'll be creating another six to eight full time jobs," she said. "That should more than fill my plate."
