Fancypants whips up cookies with quality and sustainability in mind

While it’s true that the Fancypants name is fun to say, the cookie company is more than that. The line of crisp-baked cookies consists of a blend of flavors, gluten-free products, premium ingredients, and a strong drive toward sustainability. To learn more about what’s behind the whimsical name and eye-catching packaging, Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery connected with Maura Duggan, founder and CEO.

Jenni Spinner: Could you please tell me a bit about you, and the path that took you from neuropsychology education (fueled by a Harvard education, no less) to baking and becoming a cookie entrepreneur?

Maura Duggan: I had always planned on a career in science as that is what my undergraduate degree (neuroscience) and graduate degrees (neuro + education) are in. Once I’d finished schooling, I felt restless and wasn’t enjoying my work. I always loved baking and grew up making cookies with my mother and grandmother. I began researching and realized I could start a business with a residential kitchen license. I planned to start baking and selling to stores for a few months, but I quickly realized that there was a strong demand for indulgent cookies. I started by making decorative cookies with both seasonal and holiday designs in an all-butter shortbread format. They looked really fun and whimsical in grocery store bakery departments, so that’s how I took off in baking!

JS: Could you please tell us about the early days of Fancypants and how the company took off 20 years ago?

MD: The early years of Fancypants were non-stop as I would make sales calls and deliver samples, bake, decorate, and package cookies, hand-deliver orders to all of the accounts, work on our website, answer customer questions, and do accounting, all on a weekly basis. Business was great as after just one year in, we were working with some of the best independent retailers and grocery stores in the Massachusetts area. I knew I had a huge opportunity to grow the business, so we moved production to a commercial kitchen to continue to scale Fancypants.

JS: Please tell us a bit more about Fancypants, and what makes the brand and your tasty cookies stand out.

MD: To stand out in the cookie category, the taste has to be excellent, and the look has to grab people’s attention. People have so many choices today when shopping for food, so it’s critical to focus on what makes a brand stand out. First, consumers want to indulge in delicious cookies, otherwise, why eat them? We use premium ingredients in our cookies, which makes them tasty and yes, delicious. When I baked at home in the early days, I used what I had in my kitchen: real butter and eggs, flour from King Arthur Baking Co., sugar, and vanilla. Today, we use the same ingredients that home bakers use, which means nothing artificial, and that’s the key.

Our packaging is bright red and light pink (gluten-free only), which jumps off the shelf and we have our adorable fancy peacock as a mascot. He’s whimsical and does something a little different on each package. I wanted to make sure that our look was light-hearted, fun, and just a little bit fancy.

JS: Fancypants prioritizes operational sustainability in a number of ways—could you tell us why the Fancypants team decided to make that central to the company’s values?

MD: I felt a personal responsibility to run a business that prioritizes sustainability in any way possible. When I started out, I didn’t want to bake anything that would spoil after a few days (like a muffin or bread) and get thrown out. I wanted to ensure that we didn’t waste food, which would also help our overall profitability. No matter what the decision is, I’m always asking myself and my team—is there a way to do this that reduces waste? That can be from what we source our ingredients to packaging to what we do with overrun or unusable food waste.

JS: Please tell us about the upcycled oat flour you use, and how you incorporate that with King Arthur flour to come up with a proprietary blend.

MD: The main upcycled ingredient in our cookies is flour. We use oat flour milled from the discarded pulp in oat milk production. After learning about this ingredient, my thought process was how can we not use this? This upcycled oat flour is a simple way to make an impact by using a product that reduces food waste. We blend it with flour from King Arthur Baking Co, which makes a delicious base for our cookies.

JS: Also, the company morphs any cookies that happen to get broken into renewable energy. Could you please tell us how that works, and how you came to work with Farm Powered?

MD: We partner with Vanguard Renewables, a company that has developed an ingenious solution to the critical global problems of food waste and climate change. They take any inedible cookie waste we have (i.e. burnt, fallen on the floor, etc) and transport it to a farm about 60 miles from our baking facility. It is then recycled into energy in a gigantic “digester” where microbes (from the dairy cows' manure) eat the food waste. This creates a biogas that powers the farm, local homes, and businesses, which is why they call the program “Farm Powered.” The program is a win-win for food businesses like Fancypants and for the communities that benefit from the energy. You’ll see a lot more from this company in the future, I just know it!

JS: Then, the packaging is not just striking and eye-catching, it’s also recyclable—please talk about that a bit.

MD: Thank you! I love our packaging and it took us a long time to figure out how to make it recyclable. It would have been a lot cheaper and faster to package the cookies in a standard plastic bag, but I did not want to compromise. My team relentlessly asked questions and sourced to figure out how to make a recyclable, food-safe bag that we could print with high-quality graphics. It costs us more, but I believe it’s absolutely worth it.

JS: Six months ago Fancypants launched its CPG offerings—could you please talk about that experience, lessons learned, and how you’ve grown in that short amount of time?

MD: The past six months have been exhilarating. I have to give credit to so many people who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes for the last 18 months to launch this CPG line. There is so much to think through, from packaging and design to recipe development and sales strategy and more. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this experience is that you have to learn to laser-focus on your goals, but you also have to be flexible in how you get there. While many things did not go as planned, I knew I wanted to have high-quality ingredients, an amazing design, and substantial sustainability initiatives for Fancypants. While we had some delays in crucial areas last year that pushed back our launch and cost us more than anticipated, I love where we ended up, as you can’t rush key decisions!

JS: Now, you’ve launched gluten-free cookies—could you please tell us a bit about that?

MD: We’ve had customers ask us for years to make gluten-free cookies. The timing was never quite right, but I’m thrilled to be able to offer these now. We have many people who know us as a brand they can trust for being nut-free, and I’m excited to be able to offer certified gluten-free cookies to be more inclusive of our community with dietary restrictions and allergies. Our gluten-free cookies are great for people who can’t or don’t want to eat gluten yet still want to eat indulgent cookies.

JS: What’s next for your brand?

MD: We have big plans! My primary goal is to reach new customers every single day. We already have nationwide distribution, so I want to continue filling in the gaps in areas we are not in yet. I want everyone who wants a great snack or sweet treat to think of Fancypants when they’re deciding what to have! We may also have a few more flavors coming too, so stay tuned for more delicious news from Fancypants.