The best part of cooking is to strain bites of raw cookie dough before entering the oven. However, raw eggs and flour from the batter make it unsafe for consumption and can even carry salmonella.
Victor Ong, co-founder of the edible cookie dough brand DOHKIE, first discovered the delicious appetizer through Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough-flavored ice cream. He then moved quickly until he ate it straight from the bowl.
Fast forward to 2016, Edough Cookie Dough was popularized in the United States by some specialty stores that replaced the harmful ingredients in raw cookie dough with consumable ones. He later also tried it for himself when he visited the United States for a graduation trip and loved it.
At the time, there were no edible cookie dough shops in Singapore and he saw an opportunity to spread his love of snacking in the domestic market.
He proposed the idea of starting an edible cookie dough store to his co-founder Marilyn Cher, and the duo left their jobs in mid-2018 to focus on making DOHKIE full-time.
Starting from a small takeaway stand
DOHKIE was founded in June 2018 and opened to the business in October 2018 after months of experimentation, planning and conceptualization.
According to the founders, DOHKIE was started in a small, humble takeaway stand located in the basement of an isolated mall, as they were ripped off and fully confident in their savings.
Before opening the store, the duo took almost a year to make recipes they were happy with. At that time, there was not much guide available, as the mass of edible cookies was a very new product in the world.
The edible dough of DOHKIE cookies is made safe by removing the raw flour and eggs that are usually found in traditional cookie recipes. It is also handcrafted at home and is not imported or imported.
The process was also difficult, as the edible cookie dough is an unbaked product and is quite delicate. All the ingredients, proportions and steps of the process significantly alter the final product.
“During the process, we took a very scientific approach to bringing down our recipes, as we had no previous culinary background,” Marilyn said.
Marilyn used to be a graphic designer at a design agency, while Victor was an “almost lawyer” who joined the Singapore Bar in 2018, but decided to start DOHKIE.
A dessert category of its own
As the business grew, the two founders reinvested the profits and moved to a much larger street-level storefront in 2019 on North Bridge Road to offer DOHKIE customers a better experience and a production plant themselves. bigger.
The brand’s popularity is evident: it has managed to establish a loyal following on social media, has been profitable since its inception and has experienced positive year-on-year growth since its inception, despite the challenges posed by the ongoing pandemic.
This is mainly because the mass of edible cookies according to the product is unique in its taste and texture, differentiating it from other desserts and snacks.
It can even be said to belong to a dessert category of its own.
Although the founders of DOHKIE do not claim any credit for this, as they did not come up with the idea of edible cookie dough, they were lucky to have found the opportunity to introduce it to the domestic market. and remain the only specialty edible cookie dough store in Singapore today.
However, having a new product and being the first engine is a double-edged sword. While DOHKIE faces less competition as there are no other similar stores, it is also up to the brand to create a market for its main product.
The introduction of a completely new product to the market requires intensive consumer education so that consumers understand and adopt the product.
“This is even more so in our local context, where most consumers don’t bake at home regularly and therefore don’t understand the concept of cookie dough, let alone edible cookie dough,” Victor said.
“As such, we dedicate a significant amount of resources to consumer education, ranging from teaching consumers about the product, how to consume it, storing it and more.”
Spread the love for the dough of edible cookies
According to Marilyn, DOHKIE was based on the foundation of fun and aims to constantly bring joy to people through a mass of edible, tasty and safe cookies.
The first aspect in which we consider ourselves “successful” is our ability to please our customers, who have understood and loved our product and brand for the past 3 years.
It is always up to us on a personal level when our customers show / express their happiness when they visit us or when they talk to us. We’ve made customers jump for joy when they receive their orders, customers spreading their speech and actions from their enthusiasm, and that’s what keeps us going despite how tough the industry is. F&B.
Victor Ong and Marilyn Cher, co-founders of DOHKIE
Despite the operational changes made over the years, the team has always strived to stay true to its brand, identity and voice values for the past three years, as this is why customers of the brand relate and like.
The founders also shared with Vulcan Post some notes they received from their customers.
Even the brand’s cookie dough flavors were created to suit a different customer profile, as the founders understood that food preferences are very subjective and vary greatly from person to person.
Despite the brand’s popularity, the founders still have no concrete plans to expand.
“Being of humble origin, we have always adopted a more conservative and self-reliant approach to operating and scaling our business. As such, we prefer to let demand and adoption lead our expansion, as our product is relatively new to the market, ”Victor and Marilyn said.
Meanwhile, they are happy as long as the brand or product improves on someone’s day and they hope to give joy to more people in the future.
Featured Image Credit: DOHKIE
