Biting into 35 years of Byron Bay Cookies

Commical – Episode title: Biting into 35 years of Byron Bay Cookies

Published 03/07/2025 on Chasing Albert website, spotify and apple podcasts.

Marie 00:11
Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Commical. Thanks for joining. I'm actually recording on the King's Birthday long weekend. I don't even know, is it his birthday?

Guest 00:21
You’ve got me on this one. I'm not sure.

Marie 00:26
I should have Googled it. Anyway, it's something to do with the King, but I'm happy that it's a public holiday, and I'm thrilled to have Emilie Emond with me today. Welcome, Emilie.

Guest 00:36
Thank you, Marie. Thank you for having me on the podcast.

Marie 00:39
Oh, you're so welcome, and thanks for doing this on a long weekend. Are you working?

Guest 00:44
No, so it's a pleasure to be here.

Marie 00:47
So you're the best. I really appreciate it. So guys, Emilie is from Rinaldi, and Rinaldi is basically a food company. It has a number of pasta brands and others, but one that everyone's familiar with, and one of my personal faves, is the Byron Bay Cookie Company.

Guest 01:06
That's right. You get a lot of free food, yes. That's part of the perks. So if you're a Cookie Monster, it's a happy place to work, for sure.

Marie 01:16
How long have you been there?

Guest 01:18
I've been there for over 12 years.

Marie 01:21
Wow.

Guest 01:22
Yes, so it's a long-term relationship, as you could say. I started in Byron Bay, so I moved to Byron for what's called a sea change, and there was a job opening for the Byron Bay Cookie Company. So I was lucky enough to get the role, and a few years later, Rinaldi bought the business, and I basically came with the furniture, as they say. So here I am today, and I'm now looking after all the brands in the Rinaldi portfolio.

Marie 01:59
That's amazing. That's actually pretty cool. So you have been with the Byron Bay Cookie Company for almost half of its life, because it's celebrating 30 years this year, right?

Guest 02:10
Yeah, that's right. Actually, 35 years, because it started in 1990 in Byron Bay. So I'll make sure that's correct. 1990, yes, that's 35 years.

Marie 02:25
Wow, yes. I actually didn't realise it was that old. I thought it was about 10 years old.

Guest 02:31
Well, you're not the first person to say this. I suppose it's a small brand that kept growing and growing as the years went by. A lot of people actually know it from the airlines, so we have a strong relationship with the likes of Qantas. We've been on Qantas for over 20 years, and that's been instrumental in growing the brand.

Marie 02:59
For sure. Are the original owners still involved in the business?

Guest 03:02
They're not. Funnily enough, they also did a sea change. I believe it was a couple from Sydney who decided to settle in Byron Bay, and they started making cookies in the hinterland on a farmhouse stove. So that's what the legend says. Then they started selling them at the local markets in Byron. Byron is famous for its thriving market scene, and the brand grew from there. But no, they're no longer involved.

Marie 03:34
And so when you joined, what was your mission? What was your main priority?

Guest 03:39
That's an interesting question, because one of the interview questions I got at the time was, Oprah had recently visited Australia, and they said to me, “You might have seen that Oprah was recently in Australia, and we gifted her some of our cookies. Can you top that?” And I said, “Sure.” A few years later, I got the cookies into the Oscars gift bags at the Academy Awards. So I think we've ticked that box.

Marie 04:14
So 100 percent. How did you do that? How did you get an Aussie brand into those gift bags?

Guest 04:20
Well, the only disclaimer I'll say here is it's relatively easy to put your product in one of the Oscars gift bags, and there are several, and they're all graded. You've got your A-plus-grade celebrities, and your B, your C, your D. So I'm not sure what bags we ended up in. I'll just be completely transparent here.

Marie 04:41
But you know what? A win's a win, right?

Guest 04:45
Yeah, and it got us coverage in the Sydney Morning Herald, so it did its job.

Marie 04:51
So do you do the PR as well?

Guest 04:53
Yes, I do. So it's an all-encompassing role, and we typically don't work with external agencies, so we're essentially run like our own little in-house agency. So we do everything in-house.

Marie 05:09
Mainly, is it hard to market such a great product? I always think the better the product, the easier it is to market, really. For me, I feel like when you have an amazing product like that, it's about capitalising on every opportunity, which really does exist for you.

Guest 05:25
I wholeheartedly agree. It's easier to work for a brand and a company that you believe in. So if you don't like the product, if you don't consume the product yourself, I'm not saying you can't market it, but it's a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable if you do. So that's number one. Number two, it's a really fun brand, and we give ourselves permission to be creative with this brand, which is not something that all marketers can say or claim. So that's, I guess, something that I really enjoy about it.

Marie 06:08
To stay with a company for 12 years, Emilie, I mean, what is it that they're doing so right that's kept you there, unless you're addicted to the sugar?

Guest 06:16
That's a good question. The answer here is that the role has kept growing and growing over the years. So from looking after one brand mainly, now there's, I think, over seven brands in the portfolio.

Marie 06:33
So your portfolio, or the Rinaldi portfolio?

Guest 06:36
Well, I look after all the brands in the portfolio. So yeah, there's never a boring day at the office, that's for sure. From biscuits to—we also make shortbread biscuits out of Lilydale in the Yarra Valley, pasta, flour—it just kept growing and growing, and new brands came to life, which is, as a marketer, always a big challenge: to launch a new brand from scratch. So I would say that's your answer.

Marie 07:09
What's been the biggest challenge with Byron Bay Cookies?

Guest 07:13
The biggest challenge is to basically keep reinventing ourselves, because people know us, for example, for classic flavours like the White Choc Macadamia or the Dotty Cookie with the colourful choc drops. So that's all well and good. Those flavours aren't going to go anywhere. They're just so entrenched in the brand. But we also have to keep innovating and releasing new flavour profiles, so we can't just rest on our laurels and expect that everyone will follow and continue to engage with the brand. So flavour development is a big part of what we do, and you might have seen our latest little baby, which is Banoffee Pie. So that's a very indulgent one, inspired by the classic banoffee pie dessert. And we're known for using really—what's the food industry term—large inclusions. So when you bite into a Byron Bay Cookie, you're getting those big chunks of chocolate, or fruit and nut. And that guides every product that we develop. Does it tick all the boxes from that point of view? And I think Banoffee Pie delivers.

Marie 08:44
What impact have you had, or does the marketing team have, on product development?

Guest 08:49
Well, we're a very small team, a very close-knit team. So I work very closely with—we have a project manager, rather—and because, as you can imagine, with so many brands in the portfolio, there's always a project to manage, whether it's a new brand to launch, new packaging, or existing packaging to update or upgrade. So there's always something going on. We have a project manager. I guess in agency terms it might be like a traffic manager, if you wish. And we work closely with them, and we have our product developers. So whilst I'm responsible for the marketing strategy and the brand strategy, it really is a team effort. We work in a consultative mode, if I can reference it that way. Everybody brings their ideas to the table, and off we go, and we like to test.

Marie 09:50
Where do some of the ideas come from? Do you have a formal system where you might be doing some social listening, for instance, and go, “You know what? We should try X, Y and Z. This is what we're seeing. This is what we're hearing from our customers.”

Guest 10:02
A lot of it comes down to being in the supermarket, walking up and down the aisles, which is something that I really enjoy doing. I'm forever looking for what else is happening. Is there a new trend, not just in the biscuit aisle? I'm really looking broadly. It doesn't matter what category it's in. Are there any trends that we could apply to our own category? Are there any gaps in our category that we could fill? So that's really important, to keep your eyes open so that you can grab those opportunities and apply them to your own brand. And because we're a small team and we're nimble, we can react quickly. But it's also about coming up with things that are original as well, like Banoffee. There's not much banoffee on the market at the moment.

Marie 11:05
Yeah. I'll have you know—not that I frequent drive-through, I'm more of a KFC drive-through person—but I hear that's out there. How long does it take for you guys to go from idea to product on the market? If it was a hot idea and you guys went, “Yeah, we need to move on this fast,” when you say you're nimble, what does that mean?

Guest 11:28
Well, I don't like to say that we've turned around something in less than four months, because it's happened before.

Marie 11:36
How many people died?

Guest 11:38
It's a bit triggering. What happens sometimes is we'll get a call from a customer, and a customer will say, “We need product ABC. Can you do it?” And we are a yes company, so that's one of Rinaldi's best traits, I think. Rinaldi is very focused on product development. That's their expertise, and they'll always approach a customer call with a yes. It's really rare that we'll turn down a customer's request. So sometimes we've had to turn things around very quickly, but typically speaking it takes between six to 12 months. And the reason there's such a big range is it depends what kind of packaging is involved. But yeah, we're very nimble in that respect.

Marie 12:43
You have to be so ahead of the trend, don't you, to really land the product?

Guest 12:48
Especially in supermarkets, which is one of the channels where we play. Every channel has its own challenges. We're in cafés as well. I mentioned airlines. We touch a multiple range of different channels.

Marie 13:07
School lunches. They're on the canteen menu at our school.

Guest 13:11
Okay, so this is a bit of a contentious one. Contentious in the sense that yes, some canteens will carry them. I know in my daughter's school I can order them for the school lunches. But yeah, of course, I'm going to be honest, they're a cookie, so they're not healthy.

Marie 13:30
They're a treat. But a treat's so great. When my kids ask for it, I'm like, “Is it treat day?” It's not an everyday thing. It's a treat. But if you're going to have a treat, you want to make it worth it, right?

Guest 13:43
And I think that's a trend that we're seeing, that people are willing to go the extra mile to treat themselves to something that's a quality product. If they're going to enjoy a cookie, they want it to be really good, and they want it to be worth their while.

Marie 13:58
So absolutely. That's my attitude with my kids. We don't eat junk food every day, but treats, of course. Something sweet—we're a big dessert family too—so we enjoy something sweet. You guys do the smaller ones too. I think they're not as big. They're not huge.

Guest 14:18
I'll do the visual with the hands, yeah? So this is what's found in the likes of Woolworths in the biscuit aisle. So that's our Cookie Bites.

Marie 14:30
The Bites, that's it.

Guest 14:32
And that's the angle here, that you can enjoy a couple of little bites either as a dessert or a little snack. People put them in their kids' lunchboxes, right?

Marie 14:41
Yeah, yeah.

Guest 14:43
So it taps into a variety of snacking occasions, and the range has grown over the years. The staples are there, like I was referring to our iconic flavours, but Banoffee is the latest addition to the range.

Marie 15:00
Has the brand changed much?

Guest 15:04
I would say that, okay, it has changed in a lot of ways, but in the sense that we're in a lot more distribution channels than we used to be at the very beginning. So it started as a café brand. I mentioned, obviously, the local markets in Byron. That was really in the infancy of the company at the time. It wasn't actually called Byron Bay Cookies. It was called Pickles, Pies and Petticoats, which is a mouthful.

Marie 15:33
It was not, so Pickles, Pies and Petticoats—that was the market stand in Byron Bay?

Guest 15:39
Yes. And then as people started loving and buying the cookies, they started referring to them as, “Oh, those are the cookies from Byron Bay.” So that's how the company changed its name a few years later, and it's been known as the Byron Bay Cookie Company ever since.

Marie 15:56
Good move.

Guest 15:57
Exactly. And it started in cafés. So when you go to your local café and you see a glass jar on the counter, legend says that we were one of the first brands to introduce those glass jars on café counters. Because Byron Bay is in northern New South Wales, it started obviously in that area and then expanded into the Gold Coast and the rest of Queensland. So we've always been very strong in New South Wales and Queensland, but we're a national brand now. So yes, I would say, to answer your question, from a café brand, we're now—some people might say, “Oh, you're a supermarket brand because you're in supermarkets.” I personally wouldn't say we're a supermarket brand. We're just a cookie brand that happens to be in supermarkets as well, just like we're in David Jones or other more premium channels.

Marie 17:01
What about in terms of the brand identity? I mean, the name changed a few years after the small business started, the market business started, the logo you have, the way that the brand presents itself, all of that. Has that evolved over the last 35 years?

Guest 17:19
Exhibit B—because a visual is always helpful. I love it. I'm prepared. So that's our gifting format that's found in the likes of David Jones and duty-free markets. The Byron Bay Cookie logo has been there since the company changed its name to Byron Bay Cookies in the early 90s. So that logo hasn't changed much. And we have had people over the years, whether they're agencies or consultants, who've said, “Oh, the first thing I would do is scrap that logo.” And I just nod politely. I think that logo holds so much equity for us as far as the brand identity. I'm not saying that we'll never refresh it, we'll never tweak it, or—never say never. A lot of brands and companies—think about Starbucks, for example—so their logo has gone through several iterations over the years. I'm not saying we're as big as Starbucks, so don't come at me in the comments. But it is a question that I often ponder. Should we be looking at our logo, our brand identity? But that illustration holds a lot of equity for us, for sure.

Marie 18:51
Absolutely. And the recognition—how hard you'd have to work to communicate that it had changed. It's the same brand, it's the same owners, the ingredients are the same, all the questions that will arise when you change it. I think those decisions are definitely not to be taken lightly. And I also think sometimes people think brand identity is about having the prettiest logo. It has to be modern and current, and it's not. It's about being recognisable and familiar. And for the money you spend on changing the logo, you've got to quadruple it in communicating it, actually.

Guest 19:24
And I guess another thing that we're really proud of is our packaging design. We do all of our packaging design internally. And as I said at the start, we like to be creative with this brand. So we're always thinking about how can we push the envelope from a creative design point of view. We just like to have fun with it, so that's something that's always interesting to work on.

Marie 19:55
Emilie, a lot of people wouldn't know that you and I actually met through comedy, and we're in the same comedy writers' group. And you made me think, when you were talking about how Rinaldi is a very yes company, that is a very improv way to work, right? Have you ever done any?

Guest 20:15
Yes, I did an improv course a few years back. I've always been interested in comedy. I've always been drawn to it. So I'm going to use the word “journey,” because it's funny. But I basically decided that I wanted to do an open mic. So I went to a bar in Sydney, in Surry Hills, and I just did an open mic. Then I registered for a comedy course, and I did that at NIDA. I quickly realised that doing a comedy course on the open mic circuit is very frowned upon.

Marie 21:13
Yeah, yes, frowned upon. You shouldn't try to learn or hone your craft. It should just come to you organically and naturally.

Guest 21:19
Right, okay.

Marie 21:21
Well, full disclosure, I did the NIDA course too. Did you have Marcel?

Guest 21:24
Yes, I did. Shout out to Marcel.

Marie 21:28
Massive shout-out to Marcel. And he runs an amazing comedy writers' group.

Guest 21:33
He does.

Marie 21:34
So if anyone's ever interested in comedy, maybe I'll put it on the podcast page, a link to his business.

Guest 21:36
And from there I thought, “Oh, well, I'll do improv.” There are so many—obviously, it ties in nicely with comedy—so I did improv for a while.

Marie 21:47
Where did you do that?

Guest 21:49
At Improv Theatre Sydney.

Marie 21:51
Yes, because, you know, Second City has a theatre and a school in Canada, right, in Toronto.

Guest 21:59
They're very known for improv, yes, indeed. But you know what? I'm Canadian, but when I lived in Canada, I wasn't immersed in the comedy world as I guess I am a bit more now. So sadly, I never went to Second City, but you never know. Never say never. But I loved improv for so many different reasons, and one of the reasons was—and the same applies to the comedy course—you've got people from all walks of life coming together to learn the skills behind improv. And I just loved interacting with people that I wouldn't normally interact with. Once you work full-time, it's harder and harder to make friends and meet new people, right?

Marie 22:56
Absolutely, yeah. And who has the time? And you've got a child, right?

Guest 22:59
Yes. So that was a nice thing, just to meet new people. And the building blocks of improv are learnings that you can take into your working life, your professional life, whether you're doing presentations, of course, but also if you're just in a board meeting and you get thrown a question that's a bit left of field, so you have to think on your feet. Those skills are life skills that can be useful for everybody.

Marie 23:34
One hundred percent agree. What did you prefer or pursue more? Was it improv comedy or stand-up?

Guest 23:41
Stand-up is really something that I adore, and I'll be honest, I haven't done it in a couple of years, but it's something that I would love to do again.

Marie 24:00
Me too. I really miss it. You know how I was telling you about Yeah, the Girls? So for those of you listening, there's a room called Yeah, the Girls, basically a comedy club, and it's run out of the Triffid Hotel in Sydney. They did a call-out, and I didn't hear from them when they did that call-out, but they did get back to me. So I've signed up for August, and it'll be the first time that I do stand-up in a long while. You should do it. We'll try to get on the same show.

Guest 24:34
I will message them, and I also have an update for you.

Marie 24:38
So tell me.

Guest 24:39
I went to a French comedy club because I'm French Canadian, so French is my first language. Recently, I went to a French comedy club in Sydney, in Potts Point, at the Potts Point Hotel, and I said I would love to go on stage. And they said, “Oh, we have an open mic happening in July.” So it's all happening.

Marie 25:00
Right, okay, there we go. And did they—did you get a spot?

Guest 25:07
Hopefully. I hope that they'll give me a spot.

Marie 25:13
So they've accepted your dialect.

Guest 25:16
Yes, they accepted that I speak French, yeah.

Guest 25:19
Finally, we came to the conclusion that we both speak the same language, just with a different accent. So it was a bit rough to get there, but we got there in the end, so that's good.

Marie 25:31
Have you worked on your set?

Guest 25:34
I started working on it. So I'm working on this analogy that French Canadians are basically like the Australians of the Francophone world because of the way that we make up new words and the way that we pronounce certain things. So we'll see how that resonates with that crowd. That's the thing with stand-up. You just never know.

Marie 25:57
You don't know. I know. And listen, if I could understand what the hell you were talking about, I'd turn up to help. Thank you. Take some notes. Unfortunately, I don't speak French.

Guest 26:06
I know. Well, you can use the Google Translate app, but there might be a bit of a delay.

Marie 26:13
Well, let me know anyway, because one of the things that I found with stand-up, and we were talking about this before we hit record, is how lonely it gets, actually. When you're someone who's very new to the scene, yes, you go, and I feel like everyone that's going is either on their own or they've got their little entourage. And I turn up, having just finished a day as a business owner and working full-time and sorting out the kids and trying to get on top of stuff. So I rock up, and I'm completely disconnected, other than just arriving to perform and watch a little bit. I'm not really in the scene because I don't have time. So it can be really intimidating.

Guest 26:58
And daunting, because for people listening, just to help them visualise, you rock up to a pub—it's always in a bar or a pub—and then you go up to the bar and you're like, “Where's the open mic?” And it's always either in one of the back rooms or in the basement, you know? So it can be quite daunting.

Marie 27:23
And it's so far out of my comfort zone. I don't hang out at small random bars in basements, you know?

Guest 27:30
Anymore, no. So yeah, you literally feel like you're a fish out of water. But you know what? It really forces you out of your comfort zone. It forces you to make small talk with other comedians.

Marie 27:50
Which can be so hard when the other comedian is 18 and you're the 46-year-old mother. You know, I ran late because I had to pack the lunches for the morning because someone wouldn't do ham and cheese or salami and cheese.

Guest 28:07
Yeah, I've had this realisation a couple of times where I'm talking to another comedian and I'm like, right, I could be your mum. But it doesn't matter. I think age doesn't really matter. It's really about what story do you have to tell?

Marie 28:30
No, I agree. I don't think it matters on stage, but I do find it offstage daunting. All the kids are hanging out and I'm like their mum, thinking, “Oh, don't vape. Put that away. Eat some veggies.”

Guest 28:46
Well, maybe I should start vaping so I fit in a bit more. Maybe create fake vapes. I could just bring a USB stick and keep it in my pocket and pretend it's a vape. I don't know.

Marie 29:03
You know, it's hard. When you've got a full-time and full-on job, I feel like comedy can be such a time sink. Well, not—it’s an investment. The writing, editing, rehearsing, testing, the rewriting, the testing again. It's a lot of work.

Guest 29:23
And it's also that you can't just rock up to the pub and do your five minutes and leave. I'm sure some people do that, but if you want to be respectful of everyone's time and you want to stay until the end, because you're there to watch other comedians and to learn from what they're doing. So I guess, yeah, it is a night-time, a nocturnal hobby.

Marie 29:51
Yeah, some of the comedians I speak to talk to me about how they'll do six gigs a week, and I'm like, I would love to, but if I can get to one every six weeks it would be a miracle with my schedule.

Guest 30:05
Yeah, I think you just have to be kind to yourself and just be accepting of, you know, this is what I can do, and that's fine, and I'm going to do it and have fun. That's the most important thing.

Marie 30:23
I agree. That's what I'm going to remember and play that on repeat. Emilie, yes—how did you let me call you Emily for so long? I wanted to die when you said to me, just before we hit record, “Okay, so it's Emilie.”

Guest 30:44
I guess, yeah, I'm a people pleaser in recovery. So that was me asserting myself, Marie. And I think it's also—well, you were saying you know this as well because people would butcher your name all the time. So I mainly get Emily. I was just glad that you were closer to the real deal than everyone else is. But yeah, I'll often answer the phone and say, “Emilie's speaking,” and they're like, “Hi, Emily.” And I'm like, no, I literally just told you my name, but that's okay. And I always get, “Oh, what an interesting spelling.” And I'm like, what about Marie, Julie, Sophie, Annie? But I think, yeah, it just confuses people to a degree. I guess maybe it's not that common. I know it's the French spelling.

Marie 31:43
I get it in my surname. People really want to give me a hyphen. They want to hyphenate it. So when I'm in, say, a retail store, and they say, “Do you have a loyalty card? What's your full name?” I'm like, “I'll give you my number.” “No, we want your full name.” I'm pretty sure you're going to want my number. “Oh, it won't accept it. We can't put a space.” Oh my gosh. So then we have to go through different variations, whether they've just entered L, whether they've just glued the name together, whether they've put a hyphen, which is why I always insist on, “Just go with the goddamn phone number.”

Guest 32:23
Yes, such is life. I mean, it's not like there are that many letters, but yeah, it's a challenge.

Marie 32:35
So Emilie, what's next for you at Rinaldi? Anything exciting on the horizon?

Guest 32:41
Oh, I'm trying to see if there's anything I can reveal. We are cooking up—pun intended—a new product or product range for Byron Bay Cookies, but that's all I'm going to say for now, possibly in a different category than we're currently sitting in. That's all I'm going to say. That's all you're going to get.

Marie 33:10
Otherwise, now I'm trying to think what it could be. A drink? No, it's not a drink. It's a hot chocolate, a Byron Bay Cookie hot chocolate thing with chunks. No? Cakes? A cake mix?

Guest 33:34
That's something that we've thought of before, yes, but we'll see. That's all I can reveal.

Marie 33:45
Oh, that's a shame, because I've always wanted to say, “You've heard it here first, guys,” but unfortunately it's not going to be today. I know that's okay. I appreciate the heads-up, but at least I know it'll be four to six months before I see anything.

Guest 34:00
Yes, or thereabouts.

Marie 34:03
Okay, I will keep an eye out. Emilie, thank you so much. I'll let you get back to your wonderful long weekend. What are your plans for the rest of the day?

Guest 34:11
Well, as every working parent would know, long weekends are for cleaning the house.

Marie 34:20
I did my cleaning this morning exactly, and now I'm off to the football.

Guest 34:24
Oh, love it. What's your team?

Marie 34:28
The Bulldogs. Okay, so it's rugby league and it's the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs versus the Parramatta Eels.

Guest 34:34
Well, I am a Parramatta supporter. I'm wearing blue and yellow today, and not because of the Parramatta Eels, but yeah, I support the Parramatta Eels by marriage.

Marie 34:50
Do you not go? Okay, well, not that big a fan if you're not going.

Guest 34:55
Okay, we can agree on that. No, I'm not going.

Marie 35:00
So good luck to your team. I'm so excited.

Guest 35:04
Not to jinx us both. I know the Eels are not firing.

Marie 35:10
Well, I'm off. I've literally got an army of people waiting outside going, “Who records when the Bulldogs are playing?” I'm like, “I do. You've got to take these chances.” So thank you so much.

Guest 35:22
Thank you, Marie. I really appreciate your time.

Marie 35:24
Me too, me too, and we'll see you out there on the comedy circuit somewhere, on a stage. I'm really serious about that, because you can be my little security blanket.

Guest 35:35
Oh, well, likewise. Okay, it sounds good. It sounds like a plan. Thank you. Thank you so much.