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Cakes, Pastries & Pies
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Cheryl&Co., With its OU Certification, Strives to Be the Best Gourmet Food and Gift Company, Ever
It was 1981, that our founder, Cheryl Krueger, with the help of her college roommate, Caryl Walker, started Cheryl&Co. It was her desire from the beginning to create the best gourmet food and gift company. We are pleased to say that what began as a single cookie store in Columbus, Ohio, has evolved into a multi-million dollar business. But, as successful as we’ve become, it is still our goal to focus on offering delicious, high-quality baked goods, unique gift ideas and outstanding customer service.
Armed with just $40,000, a business degree and seven years of retail industry experience, Cheryl opened the very first Cheryl’s Cookie store at a time when banks were nervous about lending to women-owned businesses.
Today, Cheryl&Co. is a multi-faceted business comprised of retail stores in Ohio, a growing Internet business and a busy Business Gift Division, all headquartered in the Columbus suburb of Westerville. The company is comprised of five divisions: Retail, Catalog, Foodservice, Business Gift Services and Internet, which can be found at CherylandCo.com. A 2005 merger enabled Cheryl& Co. to become a part of the 1-800-FLOWERS Family of Brands, while maintaining our company’s mission to be the best gourmet food and gift company, ever.
Our products have been featured on Rachael Ray, Ellen DeGeneres, CNN, Dr. Phil, the Today Show, QVC and the Food Network, along with multiple radio and print features across the country.
Our most famous product is our soft buttercream frosted cookies. We dominate in this category. Lots of companies produce hard iced cookies but, there is nothing like the soft buttercream frosting. Customers go out of their way to let us know how much they love this product. Today we make over 20 different varieties of these mouth-watering favorites from Buttercream Frosted Cinnamon Pumpkin (a pumpkin and spice cookie topped with cinnamon buttercream frosting) to Old Fashioned Holiday Cut-out Cookies topped with buttercream frosting and candy sprinkles. We have also perfected the sugar free buttercream frosted cut-out cookie this year. You have to try them to believe they are sugar free.
We are also excited to report that following a year of preparation and hard work, Cheryl & Co. converted to a kosher operation. All products baked at the Cheryl&Co. facility in Westerville are certified OU Dairy under the supervision of the Orthodox Union. Our products are dairy, kosher for year-round use, excluding Passover. We are in the process of updating all films related to our baked products to reflect the kosher symbol.
The production facility went through a purification process known as “kosherization.” A lot of cleaning, sterilization and using high temperatures to sanitize were used to obtain the designation “kosher.” We are proud to be an OU Kosher certified company, which is regarded as being in the top tier of strictness and quality.
“I started receiving calls from potential customers years ago when I first became Director of QA. These calls were to inquire if we were kosher,” says Sara Reed, Quality Assurance Director. “As the years passed; the inquiries increased and it even crossed over into our business gift area. I did my research and found out what kosher was all about. It backed up my theory. It was an additional way and opportunity for a quality check. In 2007, I was given permission to do due diligence to become kosher. It took us almost a year to meet all the requirements, but we became kosher in February 2008. OU is the most recognized kosher certification. It has increased our customer base. We are proud to say we are kosher and now advertise that fact in our catalogs, and our website.”
“From the moment ingredients come in our back door; there are quality checks,” Sara explains. “Not only do we have checks in our mixing process but also in our formation processes. Baking and cooling are the next part of the process. Each individual rack, tray and cookie is inspected for quality and weight before being individually packaged.”
Not surprisingly, Cheryl&Co. has received a SUPERIOR rating from the American Institute of Baking for 2008. This is a goal we have achieved for the past seven years. A lot of extra effort, long hours and hard work from our entire team made this happen. Every year the requirements get a little tougher and the Cheryl & Co. Quality Assurance Team makes sure the strict guidelines are being followed and enforced throughout the company. Not any easy task, but it does keep us on our toes making sure we are following FDA guidelines, food safety rules, good manufacturing practices, and most of all, live out our mission statement: To be the best gourmet food company, ever.
Thanks to loyal customers nationwide, Cheryl&Co. has the opportunity to give back. We have remained committed to supporting local food banks and educational organizations with our time and our hearts. We have also established partnerships with The Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, The Make – A – Wish Foundation, Kolman Race for the Cure and The Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation to name a few. We are honored to be a part of these outstanding organizations and have donated over one million dollars in support of their work. In addition, we have a range of philanthropic programs to serve a variety of needs.
All of us at Cheryl&Co. are very proud of our products and services. For over 28 years we have worked hard to provide the BEST and most innovative gifts and desserts to our customers. We will continue to strive for excellence with our ultimate goal being to be the best gourmet food and gift company, ever.
Cheryl&Co.’s website is http://www.CherylandCo.com.
Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein serves as Orthodox Union rabbinic coordinator for Cheryl&Co.
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That David Is One Smart Cookie
From the humble beginnings of a lone storefront in Manhattan to the present day of three rapidly growing, bustling plants, David’s Cookies has been a trend-setting icon in the gourmet food industry since its opening in 1979.
In the late 1970’s, when boutique cookie shops were popping up along the West Coast, Chef David Liederman decided it was time to bring this fad to the East Coast. The smell of freshly baked cookies permeated the New York City air, drawing in hundreds of customers daily. Over the course of the next few years, more than 200 David’s Cookies stores sprouted up internationally.
The 1980’s brought about an economic recession that left David’s Cookies and many other companies struggling. The company was bought by a New Jersey-based gourmet food company: Fairfield Gourmet Corporation. They helped introduce David’s to the wholesale and co-branding world. The cookies once again gained popularity and by the 1990’s, David’s was rejuvenated into a thriving industry!
Throughout the years, David’s has transformed from a mom and pop store front that specialized in simple, tasty cookies, to a company with three plants that produce cookie dough, brownies, cakes, tarts, muffin batter, ruggalach, scones, crumb cakes, and more. David’s has developed a niche for pan-baked and IQF frozen ready-to-bake desserts. This greatly assists the chefs in high volume feeders like hotels, caterers, convention centers and cafes because they are able to save on labor, yet still produce fresh baked products daily.
David’s is currently in the process of introducing a new line of products to their wholesale customers: Fresh Baked Muffins. These muffins have a sour cream base rather than the more typical water base that is found in most store-bought muffins. In addition to this line, David’s has created Decadent Cookie Dough. Each cookie is roughly 5 inches in diameter and made with huge chunks of Hershey’s brand candy.
With such a variety of products and ingredients within these products, keeping strict kosher facilities would be near impossible without the help from the Orthodox Union. Since the OU provides a directory of certified companies, it makes purchasing kosher ingredients much easier. Without this, David’s would have to research every ingredient purchased to not only make sure that the specific ingredient is kosher, but that it hasn’t been processed on non-kosher machines or surfaces. In addition, the OU has greatly enhanced David’s quality procedures by implementing logbooks and record keeping on all raw materials to be checked by the rabbi which are also used for David’s Quality Control records. This also assists in the uniformity of the product as only certain manufacturers with detailed specs are approved.
David’s Cookies would not be where it is today, as one of the largest quality dessert producers in the Northeast of both kosher dairy and pareve products, without the assistance of the OU. The OU symbol does not just stand for kosher supervision; it stands for quality without compromise!
Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein serves as Orthodox Union rabbinic coordinator for David’s Cookies.
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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Duncan Hines Announces that Cake Mixes Will Once Again be Certified Pareve
Duncan Hines, The Man, was a traveling salesman turned food critic. Duncan’s passion for baked goods evolved into hundreds of products, including cake mixes. Today, Duncan Hines is a leading maker of cake, brownie, muffin, dessert kits and cookie mixes, and ready-to-serve frostings. Duncan Hines is owned by Pinnacle Foods Group, Inc., a leading producer, marketer and distributor of high-quality branded food products in the frozen foods and dry foods segments.
The company responded in September 2006 to consumer demand and declared it would bring back certified pareve kosher cake mixes, reversing the 2005 decision to switch the product to dairy. Now, once again, the mixes are available to prepare cakes for the Sabbath table, which usually features meat meals.
The 2006 decision was assisted by the work of OU rabbinic coordinator Rabbi Michael Coleman, who during the period following the move to dairy communicated effectively and worked diligently with Duncan Hines plant and R&D personnel to help them gain a better understanding not only of OU certification, but of the advantages of pareve status.
As a result, Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Cake Mixes are once again identified by OU or OU Pareve on the label. The product line includes Moist Deluxe Classic Yellow, the best selling cake mix in the country, and other consumer favorites such as Devil’s Food, Lemon Supreme and Butter Recipe Golden.
“We are very excited to again offer Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Cake Mixes as non-dairy pareve products,” declared Chief Executive Officer Jeff Ansell. “We are now able to ensure that our production facilities (in Centralia, IL) can produce dairy-free product with certainty. This is based on moving our dairy-based cakes to another production facility.We made this shift in production because we wanted to once again offer our long-time and valued pareve consumers non-dairy cake mixes. It was a difficult decision last year to change away from pareve. We heard both from consumers and trade customers and that is why we worked hard to make the move back to pareve,” said Mr. Ansell.
In addition to satisfying the needs of kosher consumers, non-dairy pareve products can be enjoyed by lactose intolerance individuals with a sweet tooth.
Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of OU Kosher, praises Duncan Hines for its decision to restore mixes to OU pareve status. “Successful companies make smart decisions, even if it means reversing a previous decision,” he declared. I commend the company for restoring the mixes to OU pareve status, which means they are now restored to the Sabbath meat table.”
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Monday, August 01, 2005
Michigan Dessert Corporation
Our company is a custom developer and manufacturer of specialty dry mix products for major restaurant chains and food processors in the United States and overseas. Richard Elias and Gary Freeman have owned and managed the company since 1983 and have seen a tremendous growth in customer base and product variety. We are based in a 50,000 foot technical development and manufacturing center in Southeastern Michigan and we design a wide range of custom foods and process them from there. Michigan Dessert handles regular and sugar free puddings, meringues, cakes, bakery items, pie fillings, mousses and glazes.
Our company has seen an increasing demand from food processors that use our dry mixes in their finished retail applications that we offer more and more kosher items. Upon investigating the wide range of koshering agencies available we found that the one most universally accepted was the Orthodox Union. Our choice was simple.
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Friday, January 21, 2005
Dawn and the OU: 2 Perfect ‘Matching Circles’
Few companies understand bakery and kosher as much as Dawn Foods. Dawn Foods has a rich lexicon of kosher terms that includes the
word hamantasch (special pastry for the Purim holiday), which the company helped make for a carnival at the Shaare Shamayim-Beth Judah synagogue in Philadelphia. This wasn’t any ordinary hamantasch, but one that weighed 738 pounds and measured at least 20 feet on all three sides. The giant hamantasch pastry contained 96 pounds of sugar, 84 pounds of allpurpose flour, 108 pounds of cake flour, four gallons of eggs and water, 60 pounds of margarine and 323
pounds of pie filling, all donated by Dawn Foods. Additionally, Dawn contributed supplies and equipment, including a brand new sheeter. Mr. Mike Goldinger, a Dawn Edison sales representative and resident
bakery expert, acted as head baker and hamantasch expert for the event. The festive hamantasch was baked and assembled by a team of 100 volunteers using the synagogue’s two convection ovens and 130
pans of cake, and took nearly 13 hours to complete. Aside from Dawn Food’s magnanimous gesture in assisting in the Purim obligation of giving gifts of food, what was left of the world’s largest hamantasch
after the carnival was donated to the Saligman House, a Philadelphia senior citizens home. Feats like this are quite commonplace for a company that is accustomed to doing things in a big way and with the most exacting of standards. It is those same exacting standards
that make OU Kosher a perfect match for Dawn Foods.
The aforementioned exacting standards manifest themselves in the constant communication between the kosher contacts at the various Dawn Foods plants and my office. Hardly a day passes without requests for new ingredient or product approvals being submitted to me. And invariably these same applications are thoroughly complete, using the proper request forms accompanied by the necessary Letters of Kosher Certification or batch formulae. Simply put, all the kosher
contacts at the various Dawn Foods plants know what has to be done so that all their raw materials and products are properly registered onto their respective schedule A’s and B’s. Critical time is saved in properly registering these new ingredients and finished goods because of the proper training and knowledge these kosher contacts have. The high priority Dawn Foods makes for maintaining the exacting standards of OU Kosher is a reflection of the outstanding reputation
Dawn Foods has in the quality of its products and the service it provides for its customers.
Not enough can be said about Dawn Food’s Quality Training coordinator, Mr. Jim Peacock, who also doubles as the company’s Kosher Coordinator. (Mr. Peacock demonstrated his fluency in kosher by getting a perfect score on Rabbi Stone’s Kosher IQ Test in the
Behind the Union Symbol!) He plays an integral role in the education of the various Dawn Foods plants’ kosher contacts and in the maintenance of the high standards of the OU kosher program in
general. Although all of Dawn Food’s dry mixes and fully baked products are dairy, Mr. Peacock’s unique expertise is invaluable in ensuring the kosher integrity of the thousands of fillings that are either dairy or pareve. This includes communicating with my office all products that are made on the designated pareve “fruit line” and the minimal kosherizing of some kettles to make them pareve after being used for dairy.
Also Mr. Peacock is masterfully meticulous in troubleshooting with my office any potentially compatible dairy ingredient that may be used in a pareve filling. He ably assists our dedicated and most efficient RFR, Rabbi Yosef Levy, in using the “where used” search in locating any of these compatible ingredients that may pose a problem. As Dawn Foods generates its own packaging labels, Mr. Peacock also carefully scrutinizes all labels to make sure that a dairy product is not inadvertently branded as pareve.
After all is said and done, Mr. Peacock is like a Kosher Coordinator’s Kosher Coordinator, who counsels others in keeping the OU’s exacting kosher standards. I personally couldn’t ask for a better business
relationship with anyone. This is one important reason out of the many cited above why the OU is proud to display its world-renowned OU designation on the thousands of products that bear the Dawn Foods
equally world-renowned “Circle of Excellence” logo.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
Dawn Food Products: Where Bakery Success Starts
Since out beginning in 1920 as a thriving bakery in Jackson, Michigan, we have grown to become one of the world’s largest full-service, family-owned bakery industry suppliers. Dawn is a single source supplier to the bakery and foodservice industry providing a complete
range of mixes, bases, icings, fillings, frozen and ready-to-bake
products, ready-to-sell products and equipment, plus commodities, packaging, ingredients – literally everything one needs to run a profitable bakery. We know “Bakery” – it’s all we do, and we do it with 14 manufacturing facilities and 19 distribution centers in North America. We are American-owned and operated to provide friendly local service to our customers through 46 manufacturing and distribution locations worldwide. Visit our website at http://www.dawnfoods.com to contact one of our 2,600 employees near you.
All our North American production facilities are certified kosher, the majority by our OU partnership that began in 1985. We have never had a customer’s rabbi reject OU certification. Many consumers
don’t realize that our industry is inspected by organizations such as the
American Institute of Baking and the Food and Drug Administration. But they do see the OU and they realize that an outside agency is certifying our facilities and look upon it as a seal of approval.
Strict vegetarians and some Islamic communities seek OU certification
as well. In 1991 we began pareve production of many fillings and
icings at our plant in Louisville, KY, and can now serve bakeries that produce only pareve products. Lactose intolerant consumers know that OU pareve means that there are virtually no traces of dairy allergens in the product. Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein in New York and Rabbi Yosef Levy in Louisville assist me in maintaining the OU’s high standards.
Dawn became so famous for our donuts in 1920 that our competitors
would ask for our prepared mix. Demand for our mixes became so large that we closed the bakery and opened the nation’s first mix company. Dedicated employees, outstanding products and valued customers have made our name synonymous with excellence for
over 80 years. Dawn Donut Company was incorporated in 1925 to become Dawn Food Products and we expanded our product line to a complete range of food products for the baking industry.
In 1966 we moved to our new mix plant in Jackson, MI. In 1982 the acquisition of Besco Inc. (Dawn Louisville) was completed and we began producing and distributing quality fillings, icings, and glazes to the baking industry. The first addition to Louisville was a dry mix production line fashioned from the state-of-the-art technology used by Dawn to provide mixes and bases to the Southeastern United States. With great support from the OU, Louisville became kosher-certified in 1986. Customer demand increased and in 1994 we completed an
expansion that doubled our Louisville capacity of both wet and dry products. Of the original 32 Besco employees, 17 of us are still serving Dawn and our customers today. Dawn’s Louisville family has grown to over 170 and our sales have increased more than ten-fold.
With the Eastern United States being serviced properly, it was time in 1985 to move west, which we did with the purchase of Baker Boy in Denver, CO, our first OU certified company. Dawn Denver provided both wet and dry products and was our first distribution center in the
west. 1987 brought us our first frozen plant in Crown Point, IN, producing mainly puff pastry, danish and muffins certified OU-D. Dawn initiated international expansion in 1989 with the purchase of a facility in England producing both dry and frozen products. In 1997 we acquired Knaubs cake plant in York, PA, giving Dawn the capability to produce decorated finished cakes certified OU-D; we also acquired Mixco Internacional SA de CV in Mexico.
Construction of our newest automated Decorated Cake Manufacturing Facility (OU-D) was completed in 2001 adjacent to Dawn Atlanta Distribution. We greatly expanded our presence in the Canadian market with the purchase of CSP Foods in 2002, adding production operations in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Etobicoke, Ontario (OU-D). We also gained sales and distribution centers throughout Canada. 2002 additionally brought us a new manufacturing location in St. Peter, IL (OU-D). 2003 added additional OU-D production in Fort Wayne, Avon and Ossian, IN as well as Taylor, PA.
Our largest acquisition came at the end of 2003 with the purchase
of the bakery business of Bunge Foods, which now continues to focus on its edible oil business. Bunge’s bakery mix-related assets in Seattle, WA, Bradley, IL, and Modesto, CA were included in the
sale, as were its frozen bakeries in Mexico, MO and Tustin and
Modesto CA. The syrups and toppings plant in Seattle, and research
and development facilities in Seattle and St. Louis, were also included.
Our second manufacturing facility in Holland was added in 2004 to
increase our European capacity.
Over the years Dawn has invested in strategically located sales
and distribution facilities to ensure on-time deliveries, backed by outstanding technical support and attentive customer service.
Our mission statement says, “Dawn is…an innovative, ethical, international organization with outstanding, dedicated people…the
most cost-effective buyer, producer and distributor of quality food products to our customers.” This is accomplished through our “Circle of
Excellence”: good people with outstanding work ethics, making excellent products, taking great care of our customers. At Dawn, we do the right thing, the right way, just because it is the right thing to do.
I’ve personally known the family that owns Dawn for over 20 years
and they live and breathe this philosophy. Ethical questions are broken down to simple right or wrong answers and the family’s high standards have rewarded them with a reputation of honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness that all employees have a responsibility to protect, preserve and enhance.
Part of my personal responsibility to the Jewish community and to
our other customers is to maintain the high standards of the OU to
keep our products kosher. As Ron Jones, CEO of Dawn, says to our customers, “We’re here to serve you and God and to be a blessing to each other along the way.”
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