Hi,
My name is David Kravetz and I am the co-founder of Fairytale Brownies. Eileen Spitalny and I began Fairytale Brownies in 1992 with little more than a family recipe and a wonderful partnership. From my earliest childhood I can remember the smell of fresh-baked brownies in our kitchen, and the shear joy I experienced sneaking that first bite when they came out of the oven.
Eileen and I met in kindergarten and have been friends ever since. We've shared more brownie snacks than I can possibly remember. In the beginning we sold our gourmet brownies at street fairs and farmers' markets. All the winter visitors in Phoenix kept asking us to ship the brownie gifts back home to friends and family. And before we knew it, a mail-order business was born.
At Fairytale Brownies we have the most incredible team of talented, energetic, and dedicated people. It has been a true joy watching them grow personally and professionally over these many years. In this blog I plan to share some of the stories and experiences that make this such an exciting and wonderful place to work. Thanks for reading!
Yesterday we celebrated the 10-year employment anniversary for a number of our team members. When you
order brownies from
Fairytale Brownies, remember that there is a dedicated and professional team behind the scenes.
There were three team members celebrating anniversaries in August. Kim Brandimarte is our Shipping Team Leader who makes sure that when we
ship brownies around the world, everything is packed to perfection. Chris Corn runs our retail store here in Phoenix and provides
gourmet brownies with a warm and welcome smile to our walk-in customers. Donna Baker is our Controller and she ensures that every time we
send brownies, all of the financial accounting is complete and accurate. We also honored Jen O'Flynn with a belated recognition plaque. Jen oversees the customization of packaging for our corporate gifts. She has been a team member for over 10 years.
Fairytale Brownies would not be the success it is today without the hard work and dedication of these incredible team members! Eileen and I learned early in business that we cannot succeed alone. We have spent many years building an empowered workplace filled with dedicated, hard working and, most importantly,
happy people. Thank you to all of our Fairytale Team Members!!
Kim, Chris and Donna celebrating 10 Fairytale years!
Eileen, Jen, Kim, Chris, Donna & David with 10-year recognition plaques
Well, after 17 years of creating the best brownie gifts anywhere, we've decided to branch out.
Fairytale Brownies began with just two flavors - walnut and plain. Since that time we've expanded our line to include 12 flavors in three sizes (Original 3" x 3" Brownies, snack-size 3" x 1.5" Fairytale Sprites, and bite-size 1.5" x 1.5" Magic Morsels). We've also introduced brownie trays and our most recent creation -
Fairytale Truffles (bite-size gourmet brownies completely enrobed in 60% dark belgian chocolate).
After much soul searching we decided it was time to branch out beyond our brownie beginnings. Customers sending thank you food gifts kept asking for more variety. So the next logical step was cookies. But these couldn't be just any cookies - they had to be worth of the Fairytale name. So after months of testing, baking, evaluating and tasting hundreds of cookie experiments, we've created two decadent and delicious cookie flavors:
Caramel Pecan and
Double Chocolate.
Fairytale Cookies are made with the same premium, all-natural ingredients that we use in our brownies, including creamery butter and farm-fresh eggs. So this fall when you're ready to
send corporate gifts or
ship brownies to a friend, you can feel confident that our new cookies will be as delicious and well received as the brownies you've sent before!
Caramel Pecan and Double Chocolate Fairytale Cookies!
Not only do we bake the best brownies in the world - they're baked with meticulous attention to detail and a dedication to providing a safe and wholesome treat. This means we thoroughly inspect all incoming ingredients, track lot codes, bake nut-based brownies on separate days, and maintain a spotless facility. Our Baking Team adheres to strict Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP's) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP's). These industry standards ensure that every time we
ship brownies, you can rest assured they are created with safety in mind.
In addition to regular self-inspections, we have also been inspected by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, the American Institute of Baking ("Superior" rating), and Costco Wholesale (one of the strictest inspections nationally). We also receive regular inspections from the Maricopa County Arizona Healthy Department. Below is a picture of our most recent inspection certificate that shows we have received the highest gold rating on all of our inspections. We are all very proud to receive this recognition.
So the next time you decide to
order brownies from
Fairytale Brownies, you'll receive fabulous brownies that are also baked to the highest standards!
Gold inspection ratings from the Maricopa County Arizona Health Department
Well, I just couldn't resist sharing this picture! About a year ago Fairytale Brownies began using UPS as our exclusive shipping carrier and we couldn't be more happy with the service we've received. With UPS we can ship brownies to destinations worldwide with fast and reliable service.
Recently I was invited to participate in a UPS customer appreciation golf outing. When I pulled up to one of the tee boxes and saw this UPS "truck" I just started laughing. There was a photographer taking pictures of each group of golfers and I told him that I just had to have a picture of me driving this sporty vehicle. I'm told that this miniature delivery truck is used for promotional events such as delivering the game ball out to the field for kickoff, or as a pace car for racing events. But the folks around here that saw the picture wanted to know if I had some gourmet brownies packed in the back. Of course I said that is was full of brownie gifts.
In just two years we'll be celebrating our 20th year in business and hopefully we'll be able to have this truck at our anniversary party. We can hand out our fudgy chocolate brownies right from the back of the truck.
Thanks to all the great people at UPS for providing us such great service!!
I've written a few blog posts recently about supporting my daughter's new high school, Arcadia High in Phoenix, AZ. In the fall, we bought a scoreboard sign for the football team. In the winter, we bought a gymnasium banner for the basketball team. Well, it's spring and baseball season has begun. So we recently purchased a commemorative brick for the new baseball field. The high school just finished a three year renovation and the baseball field was the final piece of construction. Our "brownie brick" will be there for many years to come, and it's a nice reminder for people to
buy brownies online when they look down to read all the bricks.
In addition to the ads, we regularly supply
brownie gifts to the teachers and staff at the school. And of course, my daughter always has a steady supply of fudgy brownies in her lunch box every day. At this point she gets daily requests from friends for specific flavors. Like all of us at
Fairytale Brownies, she loves spreading joy through gourmet chocolate brownies!
Our "brownie brick" at the new baseball field of the Arcadia High Titans
This week we had a visit from Brett Corley, the General Contractor who built our new "Fairytale Bakery" back in 2006 (after 14 years in business we needed more room to grow). Brett is the founder of
C3 Construction in Phoenix, AZ. He hadn't seen the building since we moved in, so he decided to drop by for a visit and buy brownies for some of his current clients.
Brett and I toured the building together and he watched us making the best brownies in the world. We had some good laughs about the challenges we went through during construction (which were
not funny at the time!). I showed him our brownie test kitchen and he watched our shipping team pack up some thank you food gifts. On the way out I gave Brett some of our decadent
Fairytale Truffles (gourmet brownies enrobed in dark chocolate) to share with his staff. It was great to see Brett and catch up on the brownie business, the construction business, and life.
4/12/10 - Myself & Brett Corley of
C3 Construction Early 2006 - The walls go up....
Almost finished...... October 2006 - ready to move in!
On Thursday, March 25th Fairytale Brownies hosted a group from the Arizona Society of Certified Public Accountants. The event was organized by our Controller Donna, our Bookkeeper Michelle, and Alyssa in Public Relations. The group of 30 CPA's had a behind-the-scenes tour of our brownie bakery and learned how we create the best brownies in the world.
After a quick introduction, we all donned hairnets and headed into the kitchen. We watched our Shipping and Baking Teams in action and then went upstairs to observe customers buy brownies over the phone with the Customer Service Team. We took a quick look at the Sales, Marketing, IT, and Accounting Teams and then went into the conference room for a presentation.
The CPA's all earned continuing education credits for attending the tour and presentation. At the end of the tour we went downstairs where they could all buy brownies at a special discount. Everyone had a great time!
Here I am explaining how we wrap our handcrafted fudge brownies.
Each CPA received a goodie bag filled with gourmet brownies!
My daughter Lily loves giving brownies to all her new friends in high school. One of her best friends Jeffrey recently celebrated his 15th birthday, so she decided to make him the ultimate fudge brownies. I brought home two of our Original 8" x 8" one pound brownie trays. We sell these trays at a number of gourmet grocery stores as a take-home chocolate brownie treat. Lily frosted the first giant brownie and then stacked another on top. She then added more frosting to the whole thing and piped on her birthday message. Jeffrey was so surprised and said it ranked up there with the best brownies of all time!
Over the years we've talked about introducing a "birthday brownie kit" where we send a big brownie along with frosting, candles, and other goodies to create your own custom birthday treat. During the creation of this decadent brownie, Lily reminded me that it would make the perfect birthday food gift. So keep an eye out, you may see this new product in the near future!
My daughter started high school this year and needless to say, Fairytale Brownies is very supportive. Below is a photo of a banner we purchased to help support the school basketball team. Having a Dad who owns a brownie company is always a fun bonus for my kids. We send brownies to school with them every day and they regularly make new friends in the cafeteria. My son and daughter both "order brownies" from me on a regular basis by putting a post-it note on my briefcase before I go to work. Their friends put in special flavor requests so these orders can be very detailed. I'm secretly hoping that all these students will grow up with a love for Fairytale Brownies and one day they'll buy brownies from us! :)
Last weekend a number of Fairytale Brownies Team Members participated in a "Road Show" at two of our local Costco stores in the Phoenix area. This special event for Valentine's Day allowed customers to buy brownies for their loved ones. Below is a photo of Holly preparing Valentine brownies for some delicious taste testing.
Our fudgy brownies are the perfect chocolate indulgence and we received rave reviews during this three-day event. The response was fantastic and we hope to be back in the coming months with Easter gifts, Mother's Day gifts, and Father's Day gifts. Thank you to all of our customers who supported us last weekend!
Here's a photo of the newly installed Fairytale Brownies ad on the scoreboard at Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona. Lily Kravetz, the daughter of co-founder David Kravetz recently became a freshman at the high school. Lily has been enjoying our fudgy chocolate brownies her entire life and usually finds a cream cheese Fairytale Sprite (her favorite) in her lunch bag. Fairytale Sprites are snack-size versions of our original Fairytale Brownies. They're the perfect chocolate brownie treat!
Fairytale Brownies is an active member of the Phoenix business community and donates gourmet brownie gifts to various schools and organizations. We also send brownies or give brownie gifts to teachers and other volunteers.
We wish all the students at Arcadia High School a great year - Go Titans!!
The Fairytale Brownies Marketing Team
(left to right) Brandie Davenport - Corporate Sales, Alyssa Andrews - Sales & PR (the birthday girl!), Eileen Spitalny - Sales & PR Team Leader, Kari Gayes - Marketing Coordinator, Hilary Lee - Web Designer, Kristie White - Corporate Sales, and Erin Kress - Graphic Designer (I'm the Catalog & Web Team Leader, and I'm taking the picture).Today the Fairytale Brownies Marketing Team went out to lunch to celebrate Alyssa's birthday. Since all Fairytale Brownies team members get free rejects of our gourmet brownies, we decided to take Alyssa out to lunch at a local Mexican restaurant for her birthday gift. Alyssa has been a part of the Fairytale Brownies team for over four years. She is our "go to" team member for all things related to public relations, donation requests, advertising, and press releases. She helps out with new product development, trade shows, travel arrangements, and many other details of the Marketing Team.
Alyssa also coordinates our partnership with KaBOOM!, the national non-profit organization dedicated to creating a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Whenever we need to send brownies to a playground build, Alyssa takes care of it.
Happy Birthday Alyssa and thanks for all you do!!
I was recently asked to share the Fairytale Brownies story with a new website dedicated to helping people learn through the experiences of others. Here is how the site describes its mission:
"you | we | me | empowered - uwemp is a dynamic open-source media company focused on providing inspirational, useful feature and profile articles and key resources to convert peoples’ interests and passions into reality. uwemp and our writing community uncover the setbacks, challenges and mistakes today’s compelling people and organizations have faced and how they have parlayed those experiences into an ultimate framework for personal and career success."
You can check out the the interview by
clicking here.
In the interview I share how Fairytale Brownies took a family recipe and grew it into a thriving business selling mail order brownies. Check it out and read about some of the challenges we faced growing a business that specializes in gourmet brownies and sending food gifts worldwide!
In 2006 Fairytale Brownies moved to a new building. We were able to create this new Fairytale Bakery only with the help of Wells Fargo Bank and a Small Business Administration loan. In a just published marketing brochure, one project from each of the 50 states was chosen to highlight the success of this SBA program. Our project was chosen for Arizona, and below is the excerpt from that brochure. We create all of our gourmet brownies and ship our brownie gifts from the Fairytale Bakery. If you ever make it to Phoenix, please visit our store where you can buy brownies and watch the baking in action!
Before we started selling mail order brownies I really did love them as a kid. Our recent segment on The Food Network's "Unwrapped" has made me a little nostalgic for the days when my Mom baked my favorite chocolate brownies. With Mother's Day coming up, now is the perfect time to send brownies to your Mom! A brownie gift will definitely sweeten her day.
Here's an old photo of me licking the beaters from those fudgy chocolate brownies that I remember so well growing up. It was 1969 and I was one very happy 3-year-old kid!
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