Business Opportunities Weblog

July 8, 2008 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

East Valley Tribune:

Step into the Brownie Connection store in the historic Farmhouse Village in Gilbert and you think you’re back in the early 1900’s.

Inhale the sweet aroma of baking brownies coming from the small kitchen and you flash back to your childhood.

Take a look at the company financial reports while you’re chewing a brownie and, this time, you move ahead into the modern age of successful corporate economics.

Very successful economics.

Brownie Connection was started as a home business by three generations of mothers. Today it sells its tasty product to more than 30,000 in the Valley, nationally and worldwide via telephone and Internet. But many of its customers are good, old-fashioned walk-ins who hear about it through word-of-mouth.

The business moved in 2001 into a less than 1,000-square-foot home that was built in the 1920s on a former farm between Elliot and Warner roads at 397 S. Gilbert Road. The brownies are baked in a relatively small oven, about 40 at a time.

“Yes, I’d say we’ve been a steadily successful business,” said Amanda Dana, 31, the company’s marketing manager and its youngest owner.

“We’re a family-owned company, and we have fun working together,” said Margo Fees, 51, the main brownie baker and Amanda’s mother. Fees has created 17 brownie flavors as well as cupcakes, cookies and other taste treats.

“Here, take a taste,” said Cletis Nutting, 83, known as “Granny” and the company’s primary packager as she holds a sample brownie close to a visitor. Granny is Fees’ mother and Dana’s grandmother.

In Family, Food, News | 0 Comments