By Allison Perrine
LITTLE SILVER – Everyone loves the taste of homemade, delicious cookies, but not everyone loves the kitchen cleanup that comes with them. That’s where Fair Haven resident Claire Theodore steps in.
As the owner of Sweet Bee Bakeshop, which operates out of Little Silver, Theodore creates all-natural and flavorful cookie dough and baked goods for sale in local shops in the Two River area. From there, it’s simple: Take it home, bake it and enjoy.
“I just really have a passion for bringing a high-quality product to consumers. It really makes me happy,” said Theodore.
Fair Haven resident Claire Theodore, owner of Sweet Bee Bakeshop, shared what it has been like to operate her business throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fair Havenite opened up shop in 2015 after leaving her financial job on Wall Street. She always loved baking and cooking and after experimenting with flavors and products, she served some cookies to her friends and family. To her delight, they loved them.
“In my opinion, I couldn’t find a cookie that you could bake at home in a way that was easy and effortless, with basically no cleanup, that was also a really high-end delicious cookie,” said Theodore. “I wanted to have a cookie that was worth the calories and that was worth the price of the product.”
From there, Sweet Bee was born. Its name is a play on words from her childhood nickname and the nickname her husband calls her, she said, so it’s important to her. She first started selling her product in Sickles Market in Little Silver. With a positive response from customers in that location, she expanded. Her product is now in 16 different stores across the Two River area. Sweet Bee products can also be shipped anywhere in the U.S.
However, as with most businesses right now, her bakery has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Because she is not able to have workers in the kitchen helping her bake, her product volume has gone down as she is currently operating alone. Sale of her individually wrapped, pre-baked cookies has stopped completely. She can’t go place-to-place to promote her product.
But at the same time, this has given her a chance to take a breath and work on new business ideas, said Theodore. She recently started selling baking boxes, comprised of all the ingredients needed to make Sweet Bee cookies, aside from butter and eggs, along with detailed instructions. The baking box is available for her most popular cookie flavor salted chocolate chip cookies.
“Not only is it an activity, but it gives people a really easy way to make a full batch of Sweet Bee Bakeshop salted chocolate chip cookies,” she said. “And it makes a great gift,” she add- ed, because sending frozen cookie dough could cause shipping prices to go up “quite a bit.”
There’s a Sweet Bee cookie flavor for everybody. The company offers vegan, paleo and gluten-free cookies, seasonal flavors, toffee cookies and others with all kinds of sweets and chocolate. And she doesn’t use just any chocolate. According to Theodore, she bakes with Guittard chocolate, made by a family-run California-based company that she claims is the best in the U.S., and potentially in the world.
“It’s really high-end chocolate,” she said.
Theodore is excited to bring her product back to stores once the pandemic ends. But for now, she is happy to ship her product to homes and businesses across the country during this unprecedented time.
The article originally appeared in the May 14 – 20, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
