Page 6 of Conquered Obstacles

And we didn’t want that. There were too many drivers with Amazon and too many loose lips. No, there had to be a better way.

I called Renee while I inspected and cleaned the whole facility and told her what was going on. She moved to the office and told me to bring her there. I did and then explained the situation.

She was going to be the manager of the truck drivers and shipping aspect going forward since she knew the most about trucks having been a bus driver. She’d also been with me the longest, and I trusted her to tell me when it was too much or she needed more support.

“They’re really hurting here,” she told me. “Like serious debt and in trouble. They’re crammed in like sardines—it’s bad.”

“So they could use work right away. The truckers?”

“Already quit their jobs and signed contracts with Justina,” she told me. “We’re ready for this part. They’re going to take over cookie dough production.”

“That’s not enough for as many people as they were discussing,” I muttered. “I know they wanted simple, but I’m not going through all of this for just that.”

“To start,” she clarified. “Jamie is putting in a huge Auto-Bake line in here and it will be cookies. Just cookies. All the cookies that won’t be decorated.”

“Good.” I glanced around and then at the map. “But they can do like chocolate-covered if we need, so get an enrober and whatever else added to the diagram here.”

“Good, yes.” She nodded and made notes on her phone. “For now, if you get forklifts here and load up the factory, I can let them know to get everything loaded and to Amazon.”

Done and done. I filled the entire industrial area with sprinkle blends for St. Patrick’s Day.

Inspecting the facility more, there was a lot of office space that I hadn’t realized. “Let’s make this the order-taking place for the bakeries. A few can handle that with customer service or whatever. This can be the hub for it since there isn’t this huge office for you guys or even in New Jersey. Also, for all of the packaging and whatnot. Storage of it here and we can just bring it over.”

“I suggest two of these bigger office spaces be converted into apartments for on-site security.”

“Good. Do it.”

Once we finished there, I went back to the bakery to handle the finalization of the Easter specials… Which I didn’t want to do before I knew we could handle the orders, but we were running out of time.

Just like always. If we didn’t have the help of AMC and that plan, then we would have to cap orders. It was that simple.

I ordered a lot of food and had everything set out on the second floor, ready to make all the plans and looked a bit like I was going into battle.

The list of what we were going to offer for Easter was long, but to start, I went over what Costco would have too. We were giving two options for cookie dough in tubs this time—carrot cake cookies and cake mix cookies with our sprinkle blend that would be a Costco exclusive that they would sell in their stores.

They were very excited about that.

There was the carrot cake cheesecake with Brazil nuts, the vegan carrot cake trifle, and the break-apart cinnamon roll “monkey bread” that was shaped like an Easter egg and topped with pretty. And the sugar cookie kit to build a bunny house instead of a gingerbread house was one of Mary’s better ideas. I had thought it silly, but when she drew it out… We were all in.

The one thing Costco wanted more of was cross-promotion or us using its ingredients. They saw a rise in sales of their bacon and more when people learned they were in our meat buns. People raved about their filling in the dinner cakes we kept providing.

And what was Easter known for?

Candy. All the candy.

So, there was a peanut butter cheesecake covered in chocolate and Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs, a chocolate cake with malted frosting with a Lindt Chocolate bunny and Whoppers Malted Milk Balls on it, and a vanilla cake with a bunny butt decorated on it and decorated with Starbursts Jellybeans… Which were a personal favorite of mine.

We were also going to have vanilla naked cakes with green “grass” frosting on top that were right next to a display of candy. So they could decorate their own bunny garden how they wanted. We were going to do the same at the bakery, and even the online orders could have some options like meringue bunny butt or simple chick cookies or a variety pack with both.

And lastly—for cakes—we were offering a gluten-free pineapple banana cake that came with three options for decorations.

For cupcakes, we were having vanilla ones decorated like bunnies with marshmallow ears, carrot cake with a meringue carrot cookie on each one, and chocolate with chocolate egg candies on top. We were also offering frozen cut-out sugar cookies again in egg and bunny shapes.

And of course, meringue bunny butts, carrots, and chicks. They were too cute for words.

The rest included a mojito pie, rhubarb crisp, and strawberry papaya loaf in an egg-shaped tin.

Then, just for the bakery, we were having a variety of cookie sandwiches that were enrobed and decorated like chicks or bunnies. The strawberry pavlova, mango cheesecake, blueberry pineapple coconut dessert loaf, Easter candy brownies, egg tart, and an array of slab pies with Easter cutouts.

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