IT IS A BEAUTIFUL, SUNNY DAY. You are at a farmer’s market, and feeling so sociable that you are even making eye contact with vendors whose goods you have no interest in.
Suddenly, the most interesting thing in the world – cookies – catches your attention. The nice lady manning the booth offers you a sample. “The first taste is always free!” she says, like the sunglasses-wearing character in a D.A.R.E. instructional video. Your sweet, temptable self caves in instantly.
And you’re glad you did. It is the greatest cookie you have ever eaten. It tastes like it was baked by chubby-baby Renaissance angels, or, secularly, Care Bears. “My goodness!” you exclaim. “You could sell these for a fortune! Why haven’t I heard of you yet?”
“Alas,” the cookie lady sighs. “As a registered cottage food producer, I am boundlessly passionate about the specific food or foods I create. But the challenges to scaling my business are daunting. Cottage food producers predominantly operate solo and part time, and therefore for the most part lack the connections and expertise they would require to grow their brands.”
“That’s a real pickle!” you commiserate. “If only there were some kind of annual symposium on the cottage food business, wherein the industry’s leading experts share everything they know with anyone who would care to learn. This hypothetical convention would also interest me, a non-producer, because it is filled with neat stuff I can buy.”
“Indeed,” agrees the cookie lady. “That would be nice! But let me ask you something, candidly. Do you ever get the sense that you and I aren’t … real? And that this interaction between us is only being portrayed for rhetorical effect?”
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Matt Rosen: twenty-three-year veteran of the United States Army turned cookie man upon the establishment of Sergeant Shortbread, his own cottage food business, in 2018. Matt bakes and delivers shortbreads so good they’ll make your hairs stand on end. You should order them at SergeantShortbread.com.
But Matt’s interest in cottage foods extends far past his own kitchen. He envisions an America where home bakers and bottlers and canners and makers are equal parts visible and intertwined. To that first end Matt created The Cottage Foodie: an online directory featuring cottage food producers nationwide, which you should visit at TheCottageFoodie.com.
To the second?
“I promoted The Cottage Foodie at a decorated sugar cookie convention in Reno, Nevada last year,” Matt recounted. “I had a great time at CookieCon! But I also spent that whole time thinking about how specific its focus was, and how great a convention would be if it broadened its scope to encompass all cottage foods.”
Matt hit the net in search of such a con. Bupkis. There had been a virtual-only affair in 2023, but as anyone who has worn pajama pants to a Zoom work meeting can aver, that’s not the same thing.
Matt decided to rectify the situation. He’d enlisted before the U.S. Army introduced its “Army of One” slogan, so the thought of organizing a convention on his own presumably didn’t occur to him.
“I assembled a real dream team,” said Matt. “We have Lisa He, founder and chief baking officer (CBO) of Borderlands Bakery and My Custom Bakes, Jessica Cowley, Lisa’s de facto COO, and Tiffany Dixon, whose Vegan Treats by Tiffany falls on the exact opposite end of the butter-usage spectrum as my own Sergeant Shortbread.”
After several months of conspiration, the party of four had planned it: CottageFoodieCon, to be held at Hennepin Technical College’s Eden Prairie campus on April 23rd, 24th and 25th of this year.
Keynote speakers Tina Rexing of T-Rex Cookie Company and Allison Smith of The Cake Crusader. A town hall panel moderated by Stephanie Hansen of myTalk 107.1, featuring experts such as Lisa He and Maddie Gartmann of Garty Goodies (the latter of whom has nearly one million TikTok followers). Roundtable discussions addressing cottage producers’ most pressing challenges, such as how to create compelling social media content, and how to assemble a booth that looks nice (“Verticality and a branded table skirt are two must-haves,” advises Matt). The inaugural CottageFoodieCon has them all!
“Our vendor fair, to which the general public is more than welcome, will run concurrently to all the speaking events,” said Matt. “Go there to meet several of Minnesota's greatest cottage food producers, including Red Door Confections of New Prague, whose macarons prove that shortbreads aren’t the only life-alteringly good type of cookie, and Willow’s Wonders of Prior Lake, which freeze-dries candies to a state of freeze-dried perfection. There will also be vendors of greater interest to attendees who are already cottage food producers, or considering becoming one: Baking Me Crazy of Utah, which supplies fine baking supplies; Cake Business School of Colorado, which will teach anyone how to bake, professionally or otherwise; Mixer Skirt of New Jersey, whose cotton splash guards prevent mixers from making a mess; and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, which graciously runs the cottage food program that makes all of our state’s small, home-based treat businesses possible.
“Here’s hoping CottageFoodieCon becomes a huge hit! We would love to expand it to two events each year: one in Eden Prairie, which I’d like to turn into the Silicon Valley of cottage foods, and another in a different state so we can spread the word even farther.
“What word is that? ‘Success,’ I suppose. We want everyone to know that anyone can master the business side of cottage food production. We want this country to be full of happy entrepreneurs who can proudly point to a shelf in a coffee shop, grocery store, or their own brick-and-mortar and say ‘I made that.’ We want there to be more cottage foods!”CottageFoodieCon.com