Dere Street—

Newtown Entrepreneur Builds A Business On A Better Scone

By Nancy K. Crevier

You have probably sunk your teeth into a Dere Street scone more than once and not known it. The all natural, all butter, traditional English tea scones manufactured at Newtown residents David and Robin Cooper’s factory in Danbury are sold to caterers, inns, hotels, resorts, colleges, supermarkets, and B&Bs all up and down the Mid-Atlantic, in Florida, Texas, Colorado, California, Arizona, Nevada, and the Bahamas — and that includes Caraluzzi’s Newtown Market on Queen Street.

What is now a seven-figure business operating out of a plant on Shelter Rock Road in Danbury, Dere Street originated in the basement of the Coopers’ Newtown home in 2004. It is proof positive that with a good business plan and a good product, a successful business can be built, said Mr Cooper.

David Cooper moved to the United States from England in 1979. A professional soccer player and social studies teacher there, he coached in New Hampshire and Vermont, as well as teaching and coaching at King School in Stamford. From teaching and coaching, he moved into the sales promotion business where he honed his business skills over a 20-year period.

All along, he had been aware of the woefully pitiful versions of the English scone — pronounce “scon” in England — that were sold in America.

“The scones are really bad and unauthentic in this country,” Mr Cooper declared. “An English scone is only round, never triangular in the British Isles,” he said. And, he added, a true English scone is either plain or with currants, and served only with cream or butter and jam at teatime.

But it was not only that the scones were pie-shaped and of diverse variety that bothered him. The poor quality of the American scone was the thorn in his side. “American scones are dry and hard,” he said, due to most manufacturers making them with hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup that cut costs, but also cut quality.

His entrepreneurial spirit was calling out for a career change just when Robin, a former flight attendant, came up with the idea in 2004 of doing an authentic English scone. They decided to run with it.

“We knew we could give Americans what they wanted, only better,” said Mr Cooper. “When you put the really good stuff in, you end up with a really good product.”

They developed their own scone recipe and started turning out scones mixed up in a six-quart Kitchen Aid mixer.

But unlike many foodies who turn to baking a better product for the public, the Coopers knew that they did not want to be bakers. They never baked a single scone in their basement factory, nor do any scones leave the Shelter Rock Road factory in any form other than frozen.

“I’m a businessman and an amateur chef,” said Mr Cooper. “Bake-off is a multibillion-dollar industry in this country, and I saw that it was being filled very well — but not by scones.”

The Coopers put five freezers into their basement and, starting with just one bakery customer in Stamford, began manufacturing frozen scones for sale to companies with the facilities to bake them in-store.

Their second client was Stew Leonard’s in Norwalk, where they delivered the product, baked, and demonstrated the product for the supermarket. “It is important, in the beginning, to be very hands-on. That’s what you have to do to build a business. Who is going to sell your product better than you?” Mr Cooper said. As business picked up at Stew Leonard’s, however, and they added Balducci’s of New York and Ridgefield as a customer, they realized it was time to get out of the delivery business.

Expanding Its Reach And Its Scones

Now Dere Street, named for an ancient English roadway built by the Romans, sells its product through brokers and distributors, and, in a few instances, directly to some larger, multiunit operators like Whole Foods, and to farm stands. Dere Street has built on the success of its English scone to include in its product line a Scottish shortbread made the “original shortbread way, with the butter cut in at the end,” a mince meat-filled Eccles cake, sticky toffee pudding, Madeira cakes, and brandy snaps, crisp, tiny, cylindrical cookies sold to caterers and food services to be filled with a cream filling (“Like an Italian cannoli,” explained Mr Cooper, “only much better.”)

They have also expanded the original 1½- and 3½-ounce scone line to include a 5-ounce drop scone that has more retail and coffee shop appeal.

He has also given in to the market for flavored scones so popular in the United States, with a full line of scones chock full of berries and spices not traditionally found in northern English scones. “Americans taste with their eyes, not their stomach,” he said. Always, though, he stressed, only the finest ingredients go into any Dere Street product.

Dere Street has managed to create a homemade artisan scone from an automated process, said Mr Cooper, an essential process in meeting the demand for the product. “Once you have a good product, it’s about the application if you want to be successful,” he noted.

 From the 3,000 scones he and his wife shipped every two weeks to Stew Leonard’s five years ago, 12,000 to 15,000 scones now slip down the 60-plus-foot conveyor belt and into the freezer for distribution every day. Dere Street goes through “pallets and pallets!” of flour each week and hundreds of pounds of butter, all mixed up in 400-pound batches in a giant mixer that dominates one end of the 4,000-square-foot factory.

Mr Cooper devotes a great deal of time promoting his product at trade shows all over the nation, including the Las Vegas Catering Show in February, the Northeast Food Expo in Boston upcoming the end of March, and the National Restaurant Show in Chicago in May. He also makes time to ride with his distributors and demonstrate his product to potential buyers. The distributors, he pointed out, have thousands of products that they promote. If they can see how he sells his product and understand its selling points, he has a better chance of capturing that market. With Robin handling the family and her Dere Street responsibilities of accounting, marketing, development, and other creative work, it adds up to some very long work weeks for both of the Coopers.

Waiting Out The Credit Crunch

“One of the great things about our product is that it fits in the corner bakery shop all the way up to the Whole Foods-type establishment or the Ritz Carleton in Scottsdale, Arizona — the whole spectrum,” said Mr Cooper. His frustration right now is not with business, which is good, but with the fact that the poor economy has tied his hands to growing the business.

The Coopers have plans drawn up to move into a nearby 12,000-square-foot facility, but those plans are on hold until the economy loosens up.

 “Right now, we can’t get the money to grow. No one is loaning, companies are cutting credit lines. It is hard for small businesses to grow. The economy is affecting our ability to expand to larger quarters,” said Mr Cooper. Additional funds would also enable him to purchase automated machines for the new 5-ounce scone. “It’s a real Catch-22. If I move to a new, larger facility, I could go after new business I know I could get,” he said.

The move to larger quarters and the additional business would create more jobs and enable him to do what he envisions doing in the next three to five years: go from a seven-figure business to an eight-figure business.

He would also like to develop the brand more down the line. All of the frozen product currently goes out the door as a “blind” product, the reason that consumers may be consuming more Dere Street delectables than they realize. In a hotel, cafeteria, or inn the finished product may appear nestled cozily in a basket, and supermarkets sell them under their own label.

“I would say that we’ve come a long way in a very short time,” said Mr Cooper. “We have totally, totally done this all by ourselves. You make your own ‘luck.’ The right place, the right time, good investors, a good product, and it all falls into place,” he said.

It has not hurt that he has remained first and foremost a businessman with a plan. “When you get into business, you need to know what it is you want to do. You had better have a plan and you had better have deep pockets or plan to go into debt — but hopefully not stay there,” he warned.

The other key to a successful business, said Mr Cooper, is surrounding yourself with reliable people. “In order to build a business you have to have good people working with — not for — you, and I have a wonderful crew,” he said.

Jaime Cornel is his vice president of operations, and oversees the manufacturing of the Dere Street product on site. A staff of five full-time employees work with Mr Cornel, and in busy seasons, eight part-time workers join the team.

“Without Jaime and his team, I would not be able to grow this business. You must surround yourself with people smarter than you,” said Mr Cooper. Nor, he added, could he have started this project at the age of 50 without the support of his wife and family.

From 6,000 scones a month to 250,000 scones per month, plus a growing line of other high quality British products, Dere Street is evidence that even a floundering economy cannot keep a good man down. “We’re proof if you work hard and have a good idea,” Mr Cooper said, “anyone can do it.”