SHIRLEY – When Karen Collins, owner and CEO of Bisousweet Confections, learned to bake the sweet treats – cookies, cakes, pies, pastries – that are her company’s mainstay today, she was living in Vermont, where she grew up, working in her home kitchen.
A Massachusetts resident for over two decades, Collins now works in a 5,000 square foot commercial kitchen at Phoenix Park, where she launched the wholesale bakery business in 2014.
Bisousweet (the word bisou means kiss in French) products are “made with love,” according to Collins, who lists an array of handcrafted, home-baked goods her creative kitchen is noted for, such as soft biscotti and doughnut muffins – baked, not fried – that “taste like old-fashioned doughnuts.”
An enticing array of Bisousweet’s treats are colorfully depicted on the company’s website, www.bisousweet.com, along with tantalizing sketches from the founder/owner and chief pastry chef’s personal success story. It begins with the discovery of her mom’s small cookbook collection, tucked away on a den shelf in her childhood home.
Captivated, Collins chose “the sweets section” to map out a career.
“I knew I wanted to be a pastry chef,” Collins said. But it was not a bee-line. “No path in life is direct,” she said, and her choice made all the difference, along with a baker’s dollop of entrepreneurial spirit.
Tracing her trajectory from a simple question — asking to bake a cake from scratch instead of a mix — to convincing a teacher that the New York Times Cookbook was acceptable for a book report, Collins recalls that even her youthful daydreams were set to a different drumbeat as she “doodled” pictures of wedding cakes in the margins of her math notebook.
She became an “obsessed” collector of copper cookie-cutters, amassed her own cookbook collection.
In 1994, Collins started working in “a real pastry kitchen” as a dishwasher. One day, the pastry chef didn’t show up for an “early bake” and she was tapped to fill in. “I swung into action,” she said.
Four years later, she was in business.
In 1998, Collins and her then-husband co-founded Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord. It was a success. But her story doesn’t end there. Collins has moved on and branched out.
The partnership ended in 2004 and she left the business. The next year, she struck out on her own.
As she tells it, the idea dawned when she had a cake in the oven, butter cream gelling in the mixer. Collins had “the sparkle of a thought,” she said. “I could start a business!”
Which she did, in her own home kitchen. In 2013, Collins purchased an 80-quart mixer, her first, followed by an industrial-size bowl lift, which turned out to be too big for her existing space. It was a pivotal moment, she said, prompting her next move. She needed to “build a larger, commercial kitchen,” she said.
Then came a call from an established business in the area that nudged her further toward that goal. Could she make deserts for Passover? She could. “We sold out,” she said. The question then became whether the connection would continue, long term. The caller asked if she’d thought about expanding. The in-home platform was fine for now, many professional pastry chefs start out that way. But had she considered a commercial kitchen? What were her plans?
It was time to move forward, to find a place to expand her business, Collins said in a recent interview.
She found it at Phoenix Park in Shirley, a busy business enclave carved out of a former 19th-century mill complex. Collins set up shop in one of the restored, repurposed old brick mill buildings. She also rents space in a warehouse across the way, adding 4,000 square-feet of storage for packing materials.
Bisousweet is a wholesale, direct sales operation that ships fresh-from-the-oven bakery products all over the country. Collins’ business network – listed on the website – is extensive, with customers in nearly every state and a substantial roster of area businesses where Bisousweet products are sold, including Wilson Farms in Lexington, Donelans Supermarkets, Wegman’s, Star Markets, The Acton Coffee House, Nashoba Brook Bakery in West Concord and more.
With a staff of 41, including an off-site marketing director and local high school students who work in the kitchen, Collins conjures her culinary magic in fitting style, with plenty of working space, commercial ovens and other tools of the trade.
Once the home of a former ice-cream confectionery that made a popular local specialty called “Cool Dogs,” the space that now houses Bisousweet was also a print shop at one time. Some of her neighbors in the building now are in the edibles business too, Collins said, including Granola Girls and Annie’s Gluten Free products. “We’re in good company,” she said.
Bisousweet also supports charitable causes, and even created its own outreach: “Hearts for Heroes.”
It started with a pledge to donate 25 percent of sales of the heart-shaped, fruit-jam-filled cookies to the Boston Resiliency Fund, which supports front-line workers. “We ended up donating fifty percent,” she said. Thank-you e-mails poured in. People shared their stories, about how the cookies provided comfort, a way to say connected.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, those responses made all the difference.
During the state shut-down, Collins had to furlough all but a few of her employees, but she’s back to a full complement now. The question then was whether her bakery was an essential business and if it would be too risky for employees if it stayed open.
“One thing became clear … we were offering comfort, care and connection, so yes, we are an essential business, and we kept going,” Collins said. There’s also plenty of space to distance, she said.
Bisousweet Confections does not have a storefront. All of its products are sold online and shipped to customers. Collins said people have asked, but she has no plans to open a retail store any time soon.
For more information or to shop online, go to www.bisousweet.com.
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A sweet success story in Shirley - Lowell Sun
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