Brittney Cook - Building the Next Great Cookie Dough Brand

On this episode, we’re joined by Brittney Cook, the Co‑Founder and Chief Growth Officer of Something Sweet, a family‑run frozen cookie dough brand that’s redefining indulgence with clean ingredients and a heartfelt mission.

Brittney and her mom and sisters turned a deeply personal loss into a business that delivers small‑batch, brown‑butter cookie dough you can bake straight from the freezer. In just a few years, they’ve gone from hand‑scooping dough at home to landing in over 100 retail doors while keeping their faith, family, and product integrity at the center of everything they do.

Brittney walks through building a brand with her family, the operational decisions behind choosing frozen over refrigerated, and how she tweaked formulation for scale without sacrificing quality. She shares why brown butter is their secret weapon, how they developed their visual identity, and what it takes to plan and execute a successful retail launch.

We also dive into why velocity is more important than door count, tactics to drive sell‑through, demo strategies that scale, and the trends Brittney is tracking in the CPG space.

Episode Highlights:

🍪 The origin story behind Something Sweet Dough
 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 Building a business with her mom and two sisters
❄️ Frozen vs. refrigerated cookie dough
⚙️ Tweaking the formulation for scale
🧈 Why brown butter is a differentiator
🚀 Scaling up while staying small‑batch
🎨 Visual identity and packaging design choices
🛒 Expanding into retail and planning for launch
📈 Why velocity should be your north star
📦 Tactics and demo strategies that drive velocity
🔎 Trends Brittney is watching in CPG

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Table of Contents:

00:20:20 – Something Sweet origin story
02:37:24 – Building a business with her mom and two sisters
06:24:09 – Frozen vs. refrigerated cookie dough
07:34:04 – Tweaking the formulation for scale
08:19:18 – Why brown butter
11:14:18 – Scaling up
12:31:20 – Visual identity and packaging design
17:44:22 – Expanding into retail
20:31:12 – How to plan for a retail launch
22:14:15 – Why velocity should be the north star, how to grow at the right pace
24:39:01 – Tactics to drive velocity
26:07:28 – Demo strategies that scale
28:51:02 – Trends Brittney is tracking

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Links:

Something Sweet Dough – https://www.somethingsweetdough.com/
Follow Brittney on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittneycook/
Follow Adam on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/
Need help with packaging & production design? Check out https://www.kitprint.co/

Transcript

0:02

today we're speaking with Brittany Cook who is joining us from the the Sacramento area Britney is the co founder of Something Sweet a premium frozen brown butter cookie dough brand that was started by Brittany her two sisters and their mom in the fall of 2022 I believe for the listeners that that aren't as familiar with something sweet Brady maybe just give us a quick lay of the land just in terms of origin story why behind the brand core products you guys offer and then maybe just a few places that people can get their hands on them these days yeah so I'm Brittany I'm one of the co founders it's run by my mom's sisters and I and we actually launched Something Sweet in November of 2022 which was actually on the one year anniversary of my dad's passing when he passed shortly after my mom and I lost our jobs so we came to this really pivotal point in life as to if not now when and that could have been us and we grew up very spoiled by my mom she's a self taught home baker and my dad had this favorite recipe of hers which is the brown butter chocolate chip cookie and we grew up with frozen dough in our freezer and it was so convenient and also we could have a cookie anytime we wanted with that homemade taste and it was made by my mom and so we decided just to go all in at that point because we were at this point in our life where we're like if not now when and we have nothing nothing to lose and we had a lot of signs pointing to this direction in this company and so we all put our heads together that was about in September and we decided if we're gonna do it we're gonna do it with meaning and we went all in and in a very short amount of time we scaled the recipe started hand scooping made packaging and launched it on the one year of his passing so we decided to channel our grief into something bigger than ourselves that has a lot of meaning but would spread a lot of joy to a lot of other families and really put a purpose to our grief we have our two flavors it's our Brown Butter Chocolate Chip and Brown Butter Snickerdoodle and it's pre portion frozen ready to bake dough and it comes in a resealable pouch and there's eight pucks per bag made with very simple pantry style ingredients that you'd find at home but elevated with small batch brown butter and you can find our dough in about 175 retail locations across Northern California and then we're in Fox Trot in Chicago and Dallas and then we ship nationwide too awesome admire you guys how open and upfront and honest you are about the journey and your family's journey and and I'm sure a lot of other people do that are maybe on a similar journey yeah definitely thank you something sweet is clearly a family business you your mom your sisters and I'm sure you probably hear this cause you're in a day to day basis but it seems like there can be somewhat polarizing views on both sides about building a business with family and also close friends to a bit of a similar world and from someone that's actually done the thing and is it doing the thing and has built a really successful business those this far and you just seem like it's only growing faster and faster so I'm curious from actually the the horse's mouth let's say what's what's that experience been like and what it's like what are some of the pros and cons let's say yeah I think it is a very controversial like take on starting a business with your family and I do understand all those perspectives but the really cool thing about us is we've been a very close knit family our entire lives with my dad my dad and mom created a very very strong foundation for us to be close knit and have nothing affect us no matter what it is we work through it we talk through it and I think what's really cool is when we started this business it was a pivotal point where we saw each of us have very unique talents and skills and so working together wasn't new to us and wasn't a challenge so it was bringing all of our pasta and background and amazing skills and talents together um it honestly is a beautiful business with all of us working together um and it's very healing in a lot of ways for all of us because it's something to really focus on that distracts us and puts our grief into something that's so meaningful and that is for our family and our future so I think in a lot of ways it just really works for our family but I know it doesn't work for every family um and I know that that is a very hard thing to do but no matter what is thrown our way we figure it out and we work through it in a very healthy way but we don't really have a lot of those problems we really just work together well and put all of our skills together so it's been a really actually really good thing so that's great do you find it hard when you guys are all together just hanging out at your mom's house or one of your houses where the goal isn't necessarily to be talking about work but inevitably all conversations lead lead back to work yeah yeah I mean there's not a time when any of us are hanging out probably me more than any of them who's like oh my gosh I just thought about this idea or my gosh we got just got an email from this person we're always talking about cookies but it's something that we all really love so it makes it fun yeah let's just say like you had two other friends that came to then your felt really strongly we wanna do this and say hey we wanna start a we wanna start a business together what are recommendations or things to watch out for you might you have for us to set themselves up for success let's say yeah I mean I'd say first and foremost have a really good contract and make sure everything is legally very clear and that there's no blurred lines I think that that's super important no matter if it's friends or family have a really good lawyer and really define things early on and then also define what you're good at and not good at and then communicate communication is key and if there's something you fall short on be able to communicate that but I think communication and a good lawyer and a good contract that's great probably more awkward conversations up front around the legal stuff but once that's done hopefully you're avoiding anything down the line so that makes sense yeah totally dabbling into the weeds a bit more when you're talking thinking about formulation developing the product that you have today I when I think about buying cookie dough my mind typically goes like the refrigerator area versus the frozen area and you know the frozen aisle and that's often I guess the maybe less healthy ones but what was the thought process and kind of reasoning behind the focus on unfrozen versus refrigerated there was honestly quite a few different things in there in our reasoning behind choosing frozen one there was a gap in the market and there still is and there's a lot of room for innovation in the frozen dessert section and we're seeing a lot of customers switch directions into the frozen set for that frozen dough one because you get a longer shelf life it's less pressure on customers to use it right away um our innovation in our packaging is a resealable pouch so it's not like refrigerated dough where you open it and then sometimes you have to put it in a ziploc bag or it's a little bit more complex but also we remove any preservatives artificial flavors oils so you're getting more of a homemade experience the other thing too is as soon as our dough is made and pre portioned it is frozen which locks in the freshness of the dough so you're really getting the closest homemade taste um compared to a refrigerated dough um those are a couple main key reasons but also just the sheer fact of like we grew up with frozen dough and the whole experience of it as a whole compared to like a refrigerated dough is just completely different did it take a while to hone in that final formulation that you knew you wanted to do assuming you're knowing that you're going this frozen route'cause it sounds like you know your mom may have already had a pretty dialed in recipe that he was she was making for your family for a while or did it take a while to hone in this final formulation that you know you're actually gonna be able to to scale I guess yeah I mean it was in my mom's recipe book for years and years and years but obviously when you take a Kitchenaid mixer recipe and you're scaling it to a larger mixer there's some tweaks that definitely need to be made into conversions of the recipe and all of that but it wasn't that hard for us to figure it out and scale that recipe so yeah totally yeah differentiated you guys have why brown butter and what makes it so different yeah I first off I love that question brown butter has become a huge um huge amazing topic that I love to talk about so brown butter it's all not all is created equal on the market we do a small batch that's a specific process unlike any other but brown butter as a whole is essentially butter that's cooked down I like to explain it as it's cooked down past the point of ghee so that when the ghee separates there's these milk solids at the bottom that caramelize and so that really gives cookies in our case a very dominant like caramel nutty flavor naturally without any natural flavors so that's what really gives us a flavor punch in our cookies but not all brown butter is created equal so there is other butter alternatives on the market it's very complex as to what type of butter what type of temperature there's a lot of key components in it but when you taste our cookies you get a flavor punch right away and that's from our brown butter yeah is there a difference in cost compared to standard butter let's say and if so have you found that you've been able to command a a premium price or at least one that exceeds or at least is equal to that added margin impact I mean I think that it ranges it's I think definitely makes our product a little bit more premium but we've been able to kind of figure out manufacturing and scalability to be able to maintain margin and price point and b we are a premium price point and product but we've been able to kind of lower as we continue to grow and find ways to maintain the quality but also still maintain our margin and quality and price that makes total sense are there any ways that you differentiate from from other brands or I don't know new copycats that are starting to come on the market that use brand butter as a selling point let's say yeah I mean the traditional brown butter that assume as I assume most are using and I have tasted myself both competitors and other brown butter products it just is not the same um we also specialize in a very specific type of way that we brown our butter we have a specific manufacturer and things are definitely different than the traditional it's very much of a science you have to do it at specific temperatures and it also is different types of butter and if you use an organic butter versus a normal butter and there's a lot of factors in it and I have tasted every single uh you know different type of brown butter product on the market and ours is by far the best with the way that we elevate the flavor too and we also elevate it in our chocolate chip cookie with the use of almond flour and almond meal and that also does enhance like the nuttiness and caramel taste you guys have been pretty much doing most of everything in house today is that accurate in terms of production so we actually outsourced our manufacturing both for our brown butter and our cookie dough but for the first year and almost a half we hand scooped every single dough ball but we are very happy that we have transitioned to that I can imagine did you have to from when you transitioned out of hand scooping to transitioning to a co packer did you have to make any formulation or process changes that they asked for or you felt like you just needed to do that just needed to be able to support a larger scale or be able to or you pretty much able to bring over the exact same formulation process to that co packer and and just pretty much scale it up yeah pretty much I mean for us it was a pretty seamless transition but I think it also had to do with who we chose for our manufacturing and the capabilities and background and experience that they had and we tried to just keep our recipe as close to origin as possible so that customers could maintain the could continue to taste and maintain the quality and so that there was no drastic changes um and that we maintained that flavor profile small tweaks obviously along the way with you know manufacturing ingredients and bulk and all of that but nothing too drastic yeah that makes total sense yeah standpoint um thinking about back to those early days and you design that that first pouch the key variables that were top of mind for you or maybe another way to look at it I'm not sure whether you worked with an agency or freelancer what not like what do you remember were the key things that were included in the brief I mean from day one packaging was our No. 1 priority in making sure that we invested right away to make sure that it was good and also you always start out with being a new brand you never know everything right away there's always constant iterations because you hear customer feedback as to what they see what what is missing so where we started versus where we're now is definitely updated based on just hearing constant customer feedback um but we wanted to have a lot of meaning we wanted to make it nostalgic we wanted to work with an agency which we worked with Wonderkind and they didn't amazing job with our packaging and helped us iterate and they've maintained helping us grow with our packaging but we wanted to make sure there was strong call outs that it was fun and inviting but also gave customers clear vision as to what they are getting did you launch and just focus on d to C and then expand into retail or you pretty much pretty quickly right into retail too so we started out by actually hand delivering in our local area then shortly after we did the farmers market and then we started shipping nationwide and we did that for a little bit and then we launched our first retail location a little over it was a little under a year actually and with that was Nugget Market and then from there continue to grow into retail that makes sense yeah but sometimes brands when they launch in DDC and that's the channel they've been focused on for a while before they branch into retail it it seemed like there's just um there's more opportunities to educate the consumer about what your brand is all about they're inevitably somewhere or another they're ending up on your website where they're probably any of your homepage getting a sense of who the brand is and by the time they actually get to the product detail pages they probably have already a good sense of what your brand is all about but from retail standpoint probably a lot of the times the first time a a a consumer sees and interacts with your brand is when they're walking down that that frozen aisle and they've got you know two to five seconds to really understand what your brand is all about and sometimes it seems like that transition can be hard in terms of having to make some more tough decisions about what from a hierarchy standpoint what are the most important things you want to call out making the you know the text bigger imagery bigger so it really stands out and people again can get it right away from you know after two to five seconds or so did you guys have to think about that once you guys cause you were initially in DDC and then went to retail or did you really think about that from that mindset right from the get go yeah I mean it's actually really funny because my mom and I the amount of hours we stood in the frozen aisle just staring at other products to see what stands out from a customer perspective you know what's the consistency amongst all of the other products that are hierarchy brands and so trying to just figure out those little things but also within our first year we did gosh over a hundred plus demos talking to customers and really figuring out like what they needed to see for them to purchase um and we do know like it's it's like a nanosecond that people decide so you have to really have it pop on the shelf you have to make sure that they know exactly what you're selling and so we had to really kind of figure that out we definitely started with not the packaging that we have today but we quickly iterated that as we continue to grow cause we just heard from constant feedback from customers but also just standing in the frozen aisle just staring at other product I think that's definitely the right way to do it if I with all those learnings if I came to you and told you I was launching a new CPG food brand maybe it's not specifically in the frozen aisle but just in general I'm about to kick off brand and packaging design what are maybe just one or two maybe three things you tell me to keep top of mind or things to watch out for that could potentially trip me up let's say yeah I mean one I'd say in your budget invest a lot in upfront um into a really good design agency that can captivate your vision but also who has experience um who can specifically have that background in CPG or product design to make sure that you are not missing anything um cause if you can start out the best you can and put your product in the right placement it'll only help you and you can keep iterating as you continue to grow as we all do do always iterating that would be my number one just to make sure but yeah I mean I would honestly just say that that's huge and also I mean once you get your product launched that's when then you'll just hear constant customer feedback of what you can do better you obviously got some traction in DC in those farmers markets at some point you decided okay it's time for us to to really go into retail at some point I think pretty recently you're just launched or maybe still rolling out in 100 or so Raley's locations across California which is super exciting I grew up going to those stores growing up in the area when or how did you know it was the right time to go for the first let's just say big retail push and were there any metrics you were tracking to say okay these are the right ones we're tracking once they get to this point or feel like we're gonna be ready or were there just a bunch of other variables that ultimately made let you guys feel like this is the right time yeah I mean I think to be honest in our business at least I can speak on our experience you never feel 100% ready but from the beginning our main goal and mission has been to have compounded growth be strategic about starting in a Geo targeted area um and not to get like shiny eye syndrome of getting those nationwide rollouts too soon because I think we have Learned a lot just in our short amount of time even our first 18 retailers then 40 retailers that incremental growth we have Learned something pivotal for our brand as we continue to grow um and so it's also kind of a combination of like not you wanna be ready but you're not always 100% ready but you wanna make sure you're taking strategic growth um moves and so for US retail we definitely have heard all of the different advice and feedback from talking to so many different founders and we really take that to heart and also kind of build out our own strategy with that advice but very incremental slower growth has been the best thing for us totally I think that's super smart to hear that from a lot of people in terms of actually that journey of getting on the shelf or getting that yes from from Riley's to say hey yeah we're gonna roll you out in 100 stores just tell me a bit about that journey in terms of getting that first buyer meeting what it took to get that commitment and just all those steps leading up to that successful launch yeah I mean so it's probably a funny thing to say but I am the most persistent human being on this earth so you know they these buyers know me they know my name and I'm very persistent with outreach and updates and so building out a relationship with all these buyers has been a awesome experience um but getting each of these buyers attention um and meetings and getting these launches has just been a slow continual build a relationship um and not easy by any means but we don't have any brokerage team and we've done everything in the house ourselves and just built out a retail story and velocity story that makes sense to the buyers and we've also built up a strong customer base and have prepared ourselves for each and every step and each and every outreach that we make we make because we're confident in that next step um but not easy lots of outreach and persistence for sure for other brands that have that commitment from a retailer are gearing up for that that big launch they've already got the yes and now it's like from the yes to to that point of launch like what are maybe two or three things that that they should keep top of mind or really should be key focusing on to give them the best chance of success out the gate yeah yeah I think number one is it can sometimes be easier to get on the shelf but it's really important to stay focused to get off the shelf and to sell and having a strategy of from the moment you launch what's the strategy to market your product to sell your product because it's a gratifying moment when you're finally able to announce that you launched into this new retailer but that moment lasts two seconds and then it's really the hard work really begins so you have to just make sure that you have a strategy on how to actually sell off the shelf and create more customers and create strong sell through cause I think a lot of people glamorize the retail launches which is great and is a big accomplishment to get on the shelf but it's faster to actually get off the shelf if you don't know how to support it I heard you say something along those lines of growing too fast can be the kiss of death for brands and um it seems like you know a lot of CPG operators or investors that have had some success they would definitely say something similar along the lines of really focus on velocity versus as many distribution points as fast as possible to your point it's you know it a lot of times it can be easier to get on the shelf but if velocity isn't there and you get kicked off the shelf getting back on the shelf is is gonna be a a lot harder so I am just here from from your perspective it sounds like you've you've definitely learn this whether is the hard way you just kind of figure it out pretty quickly for those up and coming CPG operators can you just help understand why they should really focus on velocity versus just growing as fast as possible yeah I mean I have talked to gosh I can't even count on both hands so many different founders operators people in the space um who have Learned themselves this exact pivotal lesson of um if you grow too quickly it can be the kiss of death if you don't have the right support if you don't have the right capital if you don't have the right customer base or have engaged in the right customer base right away it can be the kiss of death and I think that we as founders can all can all get this shiny eye syndrome where if we have a large retailer reach out on the early days um and we say yes but we're not 100% ready it it can just set you set yourself up for failure so I you know we don't come from a background of CPG but we put ourselves through basically like CPG school the last you know almost three years by talking to other people and hearing their experience because um what you don't know you don't know um and so we're trying to just create our experience based on you know knowledge of other people in the industry as well and so I think it's super important for anyone who is starting out to make sure that you create a strategy um and are strategic about your growth because I think for us we've had success with building a retail story to new buyers with a strong sell through compared to you know just launching nationwide in a retailer without creating a customer base a you know social media following learning how to sell our product from the boots on the ground to the digital part so I think it's super important for you to just think strategically and I think for any founder who's starting out the best advice I got was start in your backyard which for us that's Northern California and now we are basically in all of Northern California and have created yeah have created an awesome velocity story and you know a brand what are the tools the some of those core key tools that you found thus far at least that seem to have the most impact in terms of actually driving velocity and whether it's the independent grocery level that I know you've been in for a while or what you've Learned so far in the rallies or the nuggets and these could be things like yeah shelf talkers aisle violators you know are really effective promo strategy and I you mentioned demos have been a big piece yeah what have you found can I have the biggest impact yeah I think first and foremost demos are definitely important especially when you're starting out but also continuing to grow because getting cookies into people's hands and in their mouth you know creates that sell through and also brand visibility so I think that's definitely No. 1 for us that we have maintained since the very beginning and has been very important to us I think also media social media has been very pivotal in helping bring brand awareness to specific Geo targeted locations where our product is sold doing small amount of ads but just making sure they're Geo targeted chart targeted and really continuing to show up every day promote our product there's a lot of other ways too but I think those are definitely the two most prominent ones that also keep it scrappy and boots on the ground from an actual like logistical demoing side of things for your brand specifically just out of curiosity is are you typically having a uh like a little toaster oven there that you can make the cookies and have them like fresh and hot for people or what is there I guess is there a sampling component and if so how does that work yeah um we have definitely we started out trying the mini oven um but it just took a lot of time with how many people wanted cookies and so we definitely went into it now we pre bake them cut them up but they're usually baked that morning so they're fresh um and so and you still get the best flavored cookie and taste through that but we are able to basically talk to a customer and tell them that they will imagine this but like 10 times better fresh out of the oven how do you think about you're just in your your backyard to a certain extent but let's just say you know a year or two maybe even shorter depending how fast you guys grow let's say you come on board with you know a bigger distributor or you just start getting into a big group of retailers on the East Coast as an example how do you think about how are you thinking about how you're gonna be able to to scale that important demo piece when you're not able to necessarily be there yourself yeah I think for us demo team is really important so as we continue to grow we you know a part of our budget and a part of our launch strategy is to hire out in house team that will do demos um because obviously you know we can only do them so long you know I will always continue to be in stores as long as I can but you know you also still have to continue to build the brand and you know build business but that's super important to outsource but also have it in a house um for a demo team who are you thinking about if the next needs to be the the next hire or two let's say help is definitely what we're looking to next both in finance and sales to support yeah and then definitely additionally would be you know contractor demo team or in house um more full time so definitely it's more of a strategic step by step process we haven't confirmed any of that but um it's definitely in the strategic plan for sure yeah you've been in the CBG space for a while you're in retail a lot and you're sure you're trying to track what's happening specific brands or just trends in general cross CPG that you're particularly excited about or or has peaked your interest at all I am obsessed with frozen innovation obviously I'm biased because we are innovating in frozen desserts but I do think there is a lot of amazing brands that that sit in the same frozen aisle as us that I'm super excited about both in desserts but also savory as well I love it yeah it seems like there's definitely a lot of focus on frozen in the past in the past like year or so it seems like there's a lot of cool stuff happening so I agree with that frozen is so back it seems like it it seems like it's just great it's just awesome yeah yeah um you feel like you want to share with the world at all honestly I think that we covered everything but I do uh be on our website we have our store locator and so if anyone wants to buy something sweet at a store near them they can check that and then stay tuned and follow us on all of our social media channels we definitely keep them updated with all the fun things that we're working on and doing and then we also just have a big year ahead um would love for anyone to follow along on any of our platforms and in our journey in terms of people want to follow along with you and your sisters and mom journey what's the best place to follow along with you guys maybe that is just the brand but in case there's other place um you can follow well anyone can follow us on LinkedIn I love to post on there personally and then any of our social media pages you will find our faces you will find any of our faces on there so that's where we love to be perfect awesome listen to great uh Brittany yeah and that's the pod thank you for having me awesome that's a great overview super inspiring so I just appreciate you sharing that that they're really passionate about is there um I mean for us fractional uh anything else we've been touch on appreciate the time I think that's that's it