Once upon a time Aron and I only had 2 kids. We went to a Starbuck’s on Labor Day just to hang out. When we left, Aron talked about how strong the coffee was, how thick. He joked about flattening it and I think I said something about making it a coffee cookie.
When we got home I started experimenting with making coffee-flavored chocolate chips to put in chocolate chip cookies. I baked a lot and just couldn’t get it right. I scoured the Internet looking for the chocolate chips I needed and found one company who made them, but they sucked. I knew I wouldn’t have time to sell the things even if I could get it right, but everyone I told loved the idea.
So I researched cookie companies and decided Otis Spunkmeyer would be a good fit for my idea. I wrote them in December of 2006 to tease them with my idea and never heard back. I wrote again in February of 2007 and flat-out gave them my idea of the Coffee Chip Cookie. Never heard back.
So now that I’m all famous with my blog and can do good and evil, I just want to tell Otis Spunkmeyer Company (specifically Roy Herman) that they are rude for not writing me back.
And if you ever see the Coffee Chip Cookie anywhere and absolutely love it, let me know it’s out there because I want to eat one.
Honestly babe? You should have taken it to Mrs. Fields. I have had dealings with them and they always get back to people.
ReplyDeleteAs for Starbuck's, their coffee could be used for paving because they over roast their beans (in short, they burn them in the process).
If I am not mistaken, there are two companies that have Espresso chips out. One is an Italian company who's name escapes me, but their chips can commonly be found at any World Market location. The other is Ghirardeli.
Unfortunately for corporations, avoiding legal fiascoes takes precedence over answering every helpful suggestion community members make. It is unlikely that the accused intended to personally offend you in any way--he merely must prevent his company from coming into legal entanglements with you over who has rights to this idea if in the future his company markets any product resembling the one you suggested. By not responding, he merely frees himself and his affiliated corporation from responsibility.
ReplyDeleteOtis Spunkmeyer is a big company--probably bigger than you realize. Their production lines are set up to run thousands of pounds of cookie dough, in a single batch, and the idea is never to make just one batch of anything at a time. In order for them to be interested in your idea, you would have needed to already have had a huge order for them to make, with a customer on the other end already set up to buy it from you. I worked at Otis and another large bakery company and we used to get TONS of emails from people with product ideas. Honestly, it became a significant effort to respond to everyone and I (and Roy too) had another job to do there which this distracted from. Especially when you need to explain quite a bit of background around why even if the idea they have is a good one, the company would still not be a good fit to help them bring it to market.
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