DOUGH ROLLS IN FROM SWEET IDEA

A BRISBANE business has sold more than $1.5m worth of cookie dough since May as its latest product for school fundraisers took off during the rise in pandemic-induced home baking.

As the vast majority of traditional fundraising events were cancelled at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak the owners of family-owned Australian Fundraising experienced an 88 per cent downturn and accessed JobKeeper to keep staff employed.

But thanks to a sleeper product it had stocked since 2006, it is now hopeful of staying alive.

General manager Robert Gaydon said sales of the 1kg tubs of cookie dough, that is made in Toowoomba, tripled as schools and other organisations looked to find COVIDsafe ways to raise money.

“Due to COVID, online fundraising and e-commerce sales have sky rocketed and that has led to some exceptional high growth for our business but importantly high profits for schools and organisations through Australia,” he said.

“The results have lifted the spirits of Australian Fundraising staff in what was a very uncertain time for fundraising at the height the pandemic.

“It’s been great to see schools so eager to get involved, completely surpassing their record from last year, and amid a global pandemic too.”

The company said since May it had received just over $1.5m worth of orders for 96,000kg of the product, via online ordering which it invested heavily in upgrading in 2018.

Mr Gaydon, who manages the company with his sister, said it was now looking at other baking products it might rollout to meet demand over the next few months and increasingly focusing on other COVID-proof fundraisers such as its tree-planting initiative.

“Where we have seen the most growth is online fundraising programs and the cookie dough is an outstanding choice,” Mr Gaydon said.

The business, which employs 17 people at its head office at Sumner Park, was started from home in 1999 by Mr Gaydon’s father Bill and now supplies more than 50,000 consumers each year.