With so many tasty treat franchises popping up all over the place, how do you stand out from the crowd? By offering a unique and photo-worthy cross-section, of course. Dirty Dough is a stuffed cookie concept that was created in a dorm room kitchen in Arizona and has since grown to more than 60 locations nationally (with 75 more under construction, and 411 sold) under the Craveworthy Brands umbrella.
“We are special because our cookies are stuffed — we have a unique look because our toppings are actually inside the cookie instead of on top,” Abby Pastors, director of marketing for Craveworthy Brands, said. “Of course, we do some frosting and toppings here and there, but a majority of what happens is inside, so that's what makes us a little more unique than some of the other cookie competitors that just have huge cookies.”
The cookie lineup changes weekly and currently features a “brookie” flavor (brownie + cookie) stuffed with caramel sauce, a Pop Tart-like “raspberry toaster tart” flavor stuffed with jam, a “chocolate peanut butter explosion” with fudge filling, and more.
It takes more than colorful and creative cookie concoctions, however, to create a sweet success story. For Dirty Dough’s marketing strategy, Pastors said that they work with local influencers who post Reels and stories showing them breaking open the cookies. Additionally, the company wants to add new treats to diversify the cookie lineup and teased a new introduction of dirty sodas — the trendy beverages that mix flavored syrups, carbonated water and cream or other dairy products — as beverage pairings to the cookie menu.
“Everything that we're adding and everything that we're doing will be dessert based, so the dirty drinks will actually mirror our mainstay cookies,” Gregg Majewski, CEO of Craveworthy Brands, said. “So, if you want a brookie, there's a brookie drink as well. We’re also going to have edible cookie dough that we’re adding into the portfolio mix so we can increase top line sales for our franchisees….You can only have a cookie so often, and we want people to come in multiple times a week.”
As the brand continues to grow in size with the runway to increase its portfolio ninefold to more than 500 locations nationally, Dirty Dough will also undergo a brand revamp to increase efficiencies and profitability for franchisees. Craveworthy will be overhauling its menu to simplify offerings and start from a singular cookie base that can then be altered to create five to seven different flavors, outside of the specialty rotating flavors.
“Our franchisees are going to see 10 to 20% food cost savings from the current model because we've gone to less cookie flavors and are doing more with unique toppings to drive the bottom line for them,” Majewski said. “When we were doing different cookies every week, owners were getting two cases [of cookie dough] and not going through both cases. Food cost was high, so this was our way to fix that.”
This operational shift will allow Dirty Dough the economic scale needed to grow substantially while improving the bottom line for store operators. The menu simplification, in addition to new revenue streams, will set up Dirty Dough for future success in the dessert category.
Vote for Dirty Dough in the NRN Dessert Showdown on Instagram or LinkedIn.
