We were lucky to catch up with Betsy Cohen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Betsy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have loved desserts for as long as I can remember. Growing up, I cherished the smell of freshly baked challah, melt-in-your-mouth butter cookies, and decadent pies all made from scratch by my mother and grandparents. It is safe to say that I know my ins and outs of making delicious desserts, each created with a dollop of love, a dash of joy, and a ton of happyness,

In 2012, I was given the opportunity to work part-time in the office of a bakery owned by one of the most talented pastry chefs in the country. All the magnificent cakes were made-to-order, which meant customers would be really angry if they picked up their cake and it was missing a slice because I was hungry and enjoyed a nibble or two. Instead of doing that, I ate a frozen chocolate chip cookie dough ball for lunch….every single day for the three years I worked there. This became the first seed for Happylicious.

Fast forward to 2015 when my nieces pulled out a jar of cookie dough from the refrigerator and told me to dig in. My response was to remind them of the safety concerns about eating raw dough (egg/flour) to which they educated me about why this dough was safe to eat. That tiny seed began to grow.

I went home and decided that it was time to turn my cookie-dough-ball-love-affair into something special and share it with the world. Yet, I recognized that I needed people other than those who love me, to taste my dough. I attended a food blogging conference and brought tubs of my chocolate chip cookie dough. I knew I was on the right path when I left the conference with 150 food bloggers telling me how amazing my dough was.

Being able to spread happyness in our world through Happylicious is the best feeling. Whether it’s the young children diving into a jar or adults who remember the sheer joy they had licking the bowl when Mom made cookies. I feel very fortunate to love what I am doing which is delivering happyness in every bite of our edible cookie dough.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As the Chief Happy Officer of Happylicious, I get to see how happy our customers are with our edible cookie dough and cookie mixes. Whether it’s our childhood classic flavors and/or fun and hip boozy flavors, we deliver happyness in every bite. We recently launched our 2-IN-1 Cookie Mixes which gives you the choice of mix-and-eat a large batch of edible cookie dough or mix-and-bake into 28 fresh from the oven cookies. It’s also fun to bake cookies and use our cookie dough as a filling for a sandwich cookie.

I recognize that there must be flexibility in so many areas of running a business but the one that I will never compromise on is the quality of the ingredients we use. We do not include eggs in any of our doughs and all of our flour is heat treated which makes it safe to eat as a raw product. Additionally, we use non-gmo ingredients whenever possible and focus on delivering authentic tastes with each flavor. All of this allows us to deliver happyness in every bite!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Shortly before the pandemic, two of the grocery stores that Happylicious was in filed for bankruptcy. Then, the world shut down which had the side benefit, for me, of being able to take a step back and figure out what was and wasn’t working.

I had been so busy trying to get into the grocery stores, doing demos, getting reorders, fulfilling these orders and then starting over again with the demos that I didn’t see that this was not working as a business model. Once I could, I had to pivot or Happylicious would not have a future.

When I started the business in 2015, I was hand rolling all the balls of dough. I moved on to bites of dough that were put through a cookie dough depositor (think of Ethel and Lucy grabbing the chocolates on the conveyer belt) and placing four bites into each package. As the dough was shaped, it needed to stay refrigerated at all times or else customers would have a blob of dough. To say this was time consuming would be an understatement. To say that this had to change, was crystal clear.

I worked with this amazing phd who I call, ‘Bill Nye of the food science world’ to create formulas that would allow the dough to safely stay out of the refrigerator for 1 week before its 4 month refrigerated shelf life. Staying true to my mission of using the finest ingredients, I avoided chemical preservatives and went with all-natural humectants. This lead me to transitioning to jars of dough (rather than bites).

My pivot was made from the place of resiliency, of knowing that Happylicious’ journey was not over and, instead, has the chance to soar. I think this is an example of why I, truly, believe that when a door closes, a window is cracked. I chose to go through the window.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

I manufacture Happylicious Jars of Happyness and 2-In-1 Cookie Mixes in a commercial kitchen. I had never worked in a commercial kitchen before. I worked in the office of a custom pastry shop and listened and watched what happened there but did not know at that time, that my journey would take me into my own kitchen.

I have always been most comfortable in a kitchen where the sweet side of life is happening. Baking has been something I have done since I was a little girl and I don’t think I really knew enough to think it would be challenging.

What I did know are the words, “I don’t know but I know some very smart people to ask” and I asked a lot of questions of those who have walked these steps before me. That is probably the most important takeaway I have in the world of business; own up to what you don’t know, embrace it and figure out what you need to do to move forward. It has served me well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://happylicious.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happyliciousbybetsy/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happyliciousbybetsy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/betsycohen1/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Happyliciousbyb

Image Credits
Betsy Cohen