The retail market in post-liberalised India is in for a sure boom and all brands, global and local, are vying with one another to be a part of the blast. Retail outlets churning out funky clothes, formals, fun games, footwear, groceries, exquisite crockery, pizzas, cookies... Cookies, did you say? A retail chain just for cookies alone, that is? The retail scene is sure hotting, rather baking up truly!
Some smart cookie's random idea? Not quite. Cookie Man India, a joint venture between Cookie Man Australia and an Indian group, brings to India 40 years of experience, on display in its first company-owned shop in India in market-savvy Chennai.
indiamarkets sniffed a lesson out here for wannabe food entrepreneurs and spoke to R Chandrasekaran, Director, Cookie Man, over an interesting buffet spread (not comprising cookies, however). Here, Chandrasekaran speaks about his Great Cookie Dream, the plans to expand in India via the franchisee route and why he would never settle for the crumbs when it came to making Cookie Man a name to reckon with.

indiamarkets: Could you give us a background of Cookie Man? How does India fit into your scheme of things? Is India ready for such a market experiment at all?
Chandrasekaran: First of all, to give you the backdrop, Cookie Man was founded in 1958 by Kevin Hicks, a young man who would sell fresh cookies door-to-door before opening a shop in Melbourne. Over the years, it gained such popularity and demand that he eventually designed a patented, proprietary Autobake oven so that he could bake cookies his own way and in large volumes right in the shop! Today, Cookie Man has made it big all over the world, having branches in over twenty countries, besides 40 franchise shops in Australia alone.
India is an attractive market today, if not for the sheer volumes of customer masses, at least for its discerning, well-travelled segment which is ready to try out new things. Cookies are no exception and we hope to bank on that.

indiamarkets: Did it require a lot of courage to go in for stand-alone cookie outlets and do you plan to stay that way? Any particular reason why you chose Chennai to start with?
Chandrasekaran: At present, we have retail eateries which dish out a variety of baked goodies: cakes, pastries, puffs, tarts, pies etc. And yes, having an outlet exclusively for cookies did need some amount of market research. But then, our cookies are different, not merely for the variations, but also for the different varieties of toppings over the cookies that we keep introducing to our customers. In the Spencer Plaza shop alone, we have 30 varieties, the flavours including Coffee Walnut, Brandy Snap, Honey and Oats, Peanut, Ginger and many more. Even the famous Australian Anzac cookie is available right here in India, freshly baked. We are positive that whatever product diversifications we have, they will all be only cookie-driven.
Why Chennai? That's because Chennai is a rather tough and demanding market. Most of the companies in fact prefer to introduce their products from here. If it is a `yes' from the customers in Chennai, it's got to be `yes' from any other city!

indiamarkets: Where do you procure your raw materials from? What about the shelf life of your products?
Chandrasekaran: The main ingredients we need are wheat flour, sugar, choclolate, butter and margarine which we source locally. We are particular that all the ingredients used at our Commissary meet the quality control standards of Cookie Man Australia; samples are sent to Sydney for quality testing at the lab there.
The dough (which comes in 30 varieties) is frozen to -17degrees celsius after which it is distributed among shop locations by refrigerated lorries. Once at the shop, the dough is thawed for three days, it is baked on demand right in front of the customer. These doughs can hold for seven days after the cookie is baked.

indiamarkets: You said you plan to branch out to major cities in India through the franchise route. Why? What are the special marketing efforts that you have had to do?
Chandrasekaran: We are just born in India, but the franchise formula is something which should work out. First of all, Cookie Man is one of the most successful franchise companies in Australia, and there is no reason why the success should not be repeated here too. And then, the system is such that it gives the franchisee a chance to be a self-employed owner-operator with less risk, as he has a long-term partner who has 40 years of experience in the business. We are looking for such operations in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Cochin.
We have also realised that corporate gift can be a great source of revenue. For instance, this Diwali we found that people found gifting fresh cookies an interesting alternative to the traditional Indian sweets. It is not for nothing that since January 2000, we have sold more than 20,000 kilos of cookies, adding up to Rs. 5 million in 6 months. Besides, we also have a scheme where we give two fresh cookies free with every beverage in our shop.

indiamarkets: How do you plan to stand up to confectionary majors like Britannia, Parle etc? What do you think is your USP?
Chandrasekaran: One thing I am clear about is that I am not a volume player. But having said that, it is also true that Britannia can never be a Cookie Man, just as Cookie Man can never be a Britannia. For example, giants like Britannia can never come down to varying `loose' quantities. In my shop, I can sell 2 kgs of cookies, but can also come down to even 120 grams if a customer so desires.
Our USP is customised service. A consumer can see for himself the cookies coming out freshly baked from the huge autobake oven in the shop and he can order just the toppings he likes and wants. Do you know that we are one among the few sharing the egg concerns of our customers? Almost 50 per cent of our products are egg-free for the "pure vegetarian" customers. Almost 50 per cent of our clients are repeat-customers.
All this is a very exciting scene. Like my friends tell me, "You'd have never known that with your MBA degree, you would finally land up baking cookies one day." But then, I am having my cookies and eating them too!