Cinnamon Bun Exchange: One Sweet Business
The mission of the Cinnamon Bun Exchange is everything we love about a small business. Tucked into amazingly supple rolls is the spirit of friends coming together to make really good cinnamon buns. Why? To bring a sweet belly hug and fresh-baked comfort to folks stuck at home while providing some freshly baked relief to frontliners during troubling times.
A Purpose-driven Bun
With time on their hands, friends Lori Hilferty and Tony Rizzo started making cinnamon buns and founded the e-bakery at the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak. Running with no retail space and only online sales, Cinnamon Bun Exchange started dropping their just-baked goodness in and around New Castle County, stretching into West Chester just across the Pennsylvania border. The outcome? 13,000 buns between April and mid-June, with no big mixers and just cottage industry start-up energy fueling the biz.
The chatter of shop talk mixes with classic rock in this place that feels like grandma’s kitchen, if grandma were pumping out cinnamon buns to help with healing spirits.
“We accumulated a little bit of money and were able to provide to first responders,” explains Hilferty. “Doing something more than making cinnamon buns for money - doing something with a purpose is better,” she sighs.
As orders came in, and the mission to serve up their goods to frontliners expanded, Hilferty tells the story of how the word-of-mouth operation grew legs. “Tony would keep me at thirty dozen a day. I could do sixty,” she laughs. “We were taking [buns] to State Police Troop 2, Wilmington Fire Department, and St. Francis Hospital.”
It’s a Family Thing
Overseeing scheduling and delivery, you hear Hilferty talking about the next day’s deliveries to New Castle, Newport, and Bear.
“The amount of repeat people, and those donating money” she gushes with appreciation for being able to pass along more of cinnamon-y goodness to folks dealing with some pretty heavy stuff. Hilferty recalls more than one outreach of neighborly generosity, “I’ll take a dozen, and here’s $100 to help somebody.”
Tony Rizzo is getting to work in the kitchen space on loan from Food for Thought. A Culinary Institute of America grad, the furloughed divisional chef at USFoods works with precision as the raucous dialog continues around him about which deliveries are going where.
“I’m using a recipe for challah,” says Rizzo. “What I found was that it was a great dough. I used it for a multitude of things.” After he was furloughed in March, he posted pics on Instagram. “Lori said she would buy a dozen and it was exponential,” he relates. The rest is one sweet world of a tale.
As popularity for the online-only platform swelled, the duo looped in Gerald Baker and his wife, Jennifer, to take their marketing and web presence to the next level. Baker, whose role at JPMorgan Chase was impacted by the virus, brought experience in analytics and online services, and the team is poised for growth. “Partnering with some retailers that have placement, like Haldas [Meat Market] and The Meat House, is the next part to scaling up,” Baker shares.
Too Busy Days
The online business quickly exploded. “It went bonkers! It was all over my Facebook. We had some misses, but I could not keep up,” says Hilferty.
Rizzo concurs. “Rolling from 3pm to 11pm, baking from 3am to 8am to be out the door and delivered all over, I was exhausted,” he admits. “It got harder than actually working a real job. We did a 1000 dozen by Father’s Day.”
A bigger space with more structure was the next step for the cottage business to grow from its small-scale operation. The relationship with Food for Thought is a long-standing one for Hilferty and husband, Mark, who notes, “How great is this place? We looked at how their model worked - a well-oiled machine.”
Rizzo adds, “I was rolling them out in my kitchen; since we got more serious here, we put measures in place to be more consistent [and] to be more uniform. We want to have a rock-solid product."
What’s Next?
As the oven is filled, conversations switch to social media, TikTok marketing, the vinyl wrap for the new retail display. The group is looking at ‘grab and go’ sizing, as well.
“We were just selling them by the dozen. Some people don’t want twelve. They may want a four-pack,” notes Baker. “So we are seeing baked four-packs in the retail space and testing different price points. First question we get now is, Do you do single serve? With our potential retail venue, we can go back to single service, so they can be grab ‘n go.”
One bun at a time, this off-beat crew of baking characters are doing their part to share cinnamon-dusted comfort. An entrepreneurial spirit well intact, there are big things ahead for the Cinnamon Bun Exchange. Lucky for us.
Order online at Cinnamon Bun Exchange
302-332-0586
Pick-up available, Wednesday through Saturday, 9am-11am
2201 Silverside Rd. Wilmington, DE 19810
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