Today we’d like to introduce you to James Osborne.
Hi James, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
My wife Wendy and I first started selling cookies, using some of our mother’s recipes, in the spring of 2015 as a way to supplement my income as a minister so that we could afford to take a vacation. We began by selling them at the Wheelersburg Flea Market. We noticed that we had become really popular there and decided that we would expand our efforts to include a try at the trade days in Lucasville. Success there caused us to realize that we had tapped into a real need for reasonably priced homemade cookies. This caused us to decide to get serious about growing a business by becoming regulars at area farmers’ markets and selling at festivals and online. Over the years, we have dramatically expanded the varieties that we offer, now offering a rotating menu of seasonal flavors and classic flavors that can be ordered online or found on our tables at the 2 weekly farmers markets that we do May through October and at the multiple festivals, ranging from antique and craft shows to big shows such as the Bainbridge Fall Festival of Leaves and the Ironton Wizard Fest and of course Trade Days in Lucasviille, we attend over the course of a typical year. Sometimes, it is a real struggle to keep up with demand, but the thousands of smiles and many, many friends we have made along the way make it worth it.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
We have run into a lot of bumps in the road, as could be expected. We had never borrowed a single penny, so we operated on a shoestring for a number of years as we tried to acquire the needed equipment. A mixer or fridge, or in one horrible case the oven, going down would be an inconvenience to any bakery or cookie shop, but for a small home-based business selling under the cottage industry rules it often look like a potential death sentence. However, the Lord would always provide us with what we needed to keep going. It took us a long time to become efficient enough in our methods to allow us to produce at sufficient levels to keep up with the demand for our cookies. There were often times in the early years that we would have to go with very little sleep in order to have enough to sell at the farmers’ markets and the festivals. Back then, we could never have met the volume demands that are placed on us right now.
In the early winter of 2018, I had a heart attack that prevented us from attending a number of winter and early spring shows and caused us to miss the first few weeks of our markets. However, our loyal fans were right there waiting for us when we were able to get back up and running.
In 2019 we had a lot of momentum and had even gotten to the point of discussing bringing on additional help for 2020. Of course, the pandemic hit, and we were forced to lay low and sell at whatever shows and markets that we could. However, since our markets never closed, it is just that the crowds were much smaller, and we were able to find some shows in the fall we were able to survive.
In June 2022 we suffered a house fire that caused us to lose our home as well as access to the commercial kitchen out of which we had been operating. We were unable to produce and sell a single cookie for 5 months. By the grace of God, we were able to find a new location and get up and running again by November. Once again, our loyal fans were right there waiting for us and showing us love when we were finally able to get back to them.
The road hasn’t been smooth, and we’re sure it won’t be without challenges in the future. However, the smiles we see and love we get from our customers and fellow merchants make it all worth it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next, you can tell us a bit more about your business.
We are known for the fact that our cookies are high quality and still reasonably priced. We take great pride in providing a dependable and very tasty product with our own personal spin. We also like to add the personal touch by actually listening to our customers and becoming a part of their lives, taking the time to ask how their kids are doing, or making a point of knowing what varieties they like and making sure that they can get them at a reasonable price.
We could charge a lot more and make a bigger profit, and our product is at a level of quality that would justify the higher price, but it isn’t just about the money. It is about helping make people’s lives, and our own, a little better by providing a small piece of joy or a memory of the days their parents made treats for them at a price that everyone can afford.
We will always offer the classics, but we also like to experiment with flavors, so you’ll never know what flavors or taste combinations you might find on our tables on any given market or festival day. We see smiles because we actually care and want you to enjoy our products.
What’s next?
We are hoping to be able to convert a building on our property into a kitchen devoted exclusively to cookie production, that would provide us with more room to expand our production levels and give us more elbow room to allow us to have more workers. We hope to expand our online presence and to expand sales to a point where we can bring on additional workers, both bakers and sales positions, that will allow us to expand the number of markets and festivals that we can do. Some of our favorite festivals have been scheduled on the same weekends the past few years, and it breaks our heart that we have not been to places like the Jackson Apple Festival or the Rardon White Tail Deer Festival for the past few years. If we are able to afford more workers, we would then be able to attend multiple festivals on the same day and/or adequately deal with very short turn-around times between major festivals.
Wendy and I may not get to see all the smiles because we can’t personally be in two places at once, but at least The Cookie Jar will be able to put more smiles on more faces by providing our high-quality yummy cookies to more people.
Pricing:
- Dozen Regular Cookies $7 or 3/$20
- Gourmet or Specialty Cookies $10 Dozen
- Party Trays $7 dozen plus $4 for Decorative Tray
- Shipping at actual postage costs.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: facebook.com/westsidecookiejar
