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August 13, 1999/1 Elul 5759, Vol. 51, No.45
Brownie bakers enjoy rising sales
CHRIS GARIFO
Staff Writer
David Kravetz and Eileen Joy Spitalny, owners of Fairytale Brownies, actually may have baked a little magic into their sweet treats.
The business partners, friends since they were in kindergarten together, have enjoyed better than a 50-percent increase in sales each year since they first opened for business in November 1993 in Scottsdale.
Today the business is located in a 10,000-square-foot facility in Chandler, and last month, the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce awarded Fairytale Brownies its Innovative Small Business of the Year prize.
Sales reached $1.5 million in the fiscal year that just ended in June, and the two Phoenix natives project they could reach $11 million a year in another five years. Still, they aren't yet ready to dub themselves a success.
"Neither of us feels like we've arrived," Kravetz says. "If anything, it's like the pressure is even greater."
"It is a compliment, though, when people say (we're) a success," Spitalny adds. "I think people think we're bigger than we are, so I just smile and say, 'Thank you'."
It was only about three years ago that the company began earning enough to allow the two to start paying themselves; until then, they'd been getting by on savings, loans and having spouses who worked.
Kravetz and Spitalny each bring their own talents to the business.
Kravetz is the "process guy" who likes "to be behind the scenes; I like to play with all the gizmos and gadgets." Spitalny is the marketing half of the partnership; she's "the people person. She loves to network; she loves to meet new people. She remembers names."
Spitalny says that, even as kids, when they'd do their homework together, "I could always kind-of see the end thing, and David always knew what formula to use. ... We just kind-of complement (each other). The things he loves to do, I don't really love to do; the things I love to do, he doesn't. But together, you can get a lot done. The power of the two of us is great."
The two have wanted to be business partners ever since high school, a desire that stuck with them despite going to different universities - Kravetz to Stanford University and Spitalny to the University of Southern California - and initially having very different jobs, Spitalny in sales and market research for KTVW-TV Channel 33, the Phoenix affiliate of the Univision Spanish-language television network, and Kravetz in package design for Proctor and Gamble in Cincinnati.
Those jobs, despite paying well, didn't satisfy either one of them, and they decided to start a business together. They didn't have to look far for a product.
Kravetz's mother's brownie recipe, which goes back more than 40 years, had a special magic. (Plus, being a Jewish family recipe, it's all kosher.)
"We took his mom's recipe and tried it with American chocolate, Swiss chocolate, French chocolate, Belgian chocolate," Spitalny says.
They informally taste-tested the brownies on family and Spitalny's advertising clients, deciding on Belgian chocolate. Then they quit their jobs and began baking brownies, planning on wholesaling them.
Through trial and error, they soon discovered that mail-order, direct sales gave them much greater quality control over the product that consumers were getting. They've also experienced a boost from adding Internet sales. They went from $3,000 in sales the first year, to $40,000 the next, and sales haven't stopped climbing since.
"We don't want to be a franchise company. We don't want to be in strip malls. We don't want a bunch of locations (so) that the overhead just grows," Kravetz says. "We want to ship direct. We do one thing and do it really well."
"It's the quality control," Spitalny adds. "It's (from) our kitchen to your door, whether it's office or home. ... We do everything here in-house."
The two are planning to expand the product line with Magic Morsels, "which are the edges of the trays which get trimmed away and chopped up into little pieces."
But don't expect to see cookies, muffins, bon-bons or chocolate-covered pretzels in the catalog.
"One thing we've learned is we're in a niche market, and the more we concentrate on our market, the more profitable we're going to be," Kravetz says.
Fairytale Brownies are available by calling 1-800-FAIRY-TALE, or at www.brownies.com on the Internet.
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