The Taste of Success

We met up with Mat Hauck, creator of Biscotti Babies cookies and founder of Edible Adventures LLC, in his small Berkshire warehouse and bakery. His two young daughters snacked on some of his cookies while they waited for Hauck to finish baking for the afternoon.

Though his products are now available throughout the Northeast in stores like Wegmans and Whole Foods, Hauck started out humbly—at his daughters’ school bake sale. He doesn’t even have culinary training; he was studying to become an educator when his wife’s job required that they move out of state.

“I had to make a choice,” says Hauck. Continuing his education would have meant repeating many of the courses he’d already taken just to meet state requirements. As he tried to sort things out, his elder daughter’s school announced a weekly parent and teacher bake sale. On a whim, he decided to contribute and found people were drawn to the unique flavor of his whole-what biscotti. Though it was intended to be an anonymous sale, fans soon found out who was behind the popular cookies. “People started tracking me down, saying, ‘I’m having a party, can you make this for a party? Can I just buy this?’ People liked the twist,” he explains. “It was a whole-wheat product; there aren’t a lot of whole-wheat biscotti products out there.  And it doesn’t taste whole wheat.”

Adds Hauck, “When ‘whole wheat’ is thrown onto a product name—a cookie, say—people will think it isn’t going to taste good, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t taste good.” Guided by his own preference for whole grains, Hauck found ways to make whole-grain goods tasty. He uses only a few simple, high-quality ingredients, and the results are fantastic.

Moved by his bake sale goodies’ success, Hauck started a small walk-in bakery in West Stockbridge, MA, which he named Edible Adventures. There, further customer feedback drove him toward his next innovation: the bite-sized Biscotti Babies that would soon become the cornerstone of his company. “I had produced traditional-sized biscotti in the bakery, and people loved them,” says Hauck, “but there was always a comment—not all customers, but enough, said ‘I love them, but I don’t want to buy a whole one. Can I buy half?’ At the same time, I always had samples out in my bakery. I started making small bite-sized biscotti and people started enquiring if they could buy those instead of what was in the jar.”

Yet another change drove Hauck to start packaging and selling the popular small cookies. After three years, his lease on the bakery space ran out. Undeterred, he decided to go wholesale. His wife, Wendi Hauck, a former art director with Chance Productions with experience in graphic design and marketing, designed the packaging and company logo, and worked with him to take the business to the next level. Edible Adventures was born.

The Haucks started distributing locally. After they met with success in Western Mass., they moved to the mass market. Since he had no experience in selling wholesale goods, he says, “It was learn-as-we-went. Berkshire County is great in that everyone’s willing to talk to you about what they’re doing, so I couldn’t ask for a better situation in which to tap into other small businesses that had gone the route we’re going. The logistics of shipping, getting in contact with customers… everyone was very helpful.”

The company quickly extended its distribution from local retail stores and coffee shops to chains like Whole Foods, which carries their products in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, and the Boston area; and the whole Wegmans chain. This growth was still driven largely by consumer demand. “Stores, for the most part, are pretty receptive to customers saying, ‘You know, I’ve tried this product somewhere else. You should carry it.’” In fact, after an airport store started carrying Biscotti Babies, the Haucks began to field calls from as far away as Sweden, and have shipped internationally.

Recently, they’ve branched out to gluten-free goodies, once again due to their younger daughter, who’s gluten intolerant. And once again, the key to making these cookies delicious has been a few really good ingredients, starting with good whole-grain rice flour. It took awhile for Mat to master the techniques he needed, but he’s got it down now. Just like the whole-wheat biscotti, the gluten-free cookies don’t taste like they’re meant to be made another way.

Mat Hauck attributes a lot of his success to the quality of his baked goods, and the quality of the baked goods to hard work, research, and “a lot of trial and error.” As a baker without traditional training, he adds, “The internet, now, is such a source of information. Years ago, you’d have to be in a classroom to find certain techniques, but now you can use your computer.”

As a businessman, he advises, “Trust your instincts. Listen to your gut, your inner voice.”

These are some of the plain, simple, somewhat unorthodox, and surprisingly delicious ingredients for success.