Bud's Best Cookies

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Bud's Best Cookies logo.jpg

Bud's Best Cookies is a cookie company founded in 1993 by Albert L. "Bud" Cason and headquartered at 2070 Parkway Office Circle in Riverchase. It specializes in "bite-size" cookies, offered in several varieties and sold in various size bags.

Cason had grown up working at Greg's Cookies, a business founded by his aunt and uncle in 1937. In 1970 he bought the company from his aunt and adopted new packaging which greatly increased sales. In 1983 he purchased the Bishop Baking Company of Cleveland, Tennessee.

Cason sold Greg's Cookies and Bishop Baking to Wyndham Foods for $23 million in 1986. After his 5-year non-compete agreement expired, he began planning for a new business. He purchased the 40,000 square-foot former Baxter Pharmaceuticals warehouse near Riverchase Parkway and expanded it into an 89,000 square-foot commercial bakery. The company's $12 million fully-automated plant opened in April 1992. Ingredients, stored in bulk silos, are processed by computer-controlled equipment on three lines.

The cookies were an immediate success, doubling Cason's expectations for first year sales. Early on as much as 40% of the bakery's output was "co-packaged" for other cookie brands. Cason has phased out co-packaging in order to highlight his own brand. As distribution has expanded, the company has contracted with Keebler, Food Lion and other companies to make and package some of its lines. Following advice from marketers, Cason included a caricature of himself on new packaging in 2000 so that people would know there really was a "Bud" behind the brand. The move is credited with helping increase increase sales by 40%. In 2002 Cason invested $6 million in a plant expansion to increase production capacity to 1 million cookies per hour.

Bud's Best was honored as among the best small businesses in Birmingham by the Birmingham Business Journal in 1998 and 1999. In 2008, with commodity and fuel prices surging, the company reduced its packaging sizes and switched to a four-day work week. The plant employs about 165 workers on two shifts.

The plant formerly hosted more than 30,000 kids each school year. A "Cookieland Express" train pulled by an electric cart was included in the 2002 plant expansion to accommodate those tours.

In 2017 Cason was inducted into the American Society of Baking's "Baking Hall of Fame".

Products

All of Bud's Best bite-size cookies are 1 1/8" diameter:

  • Bite-size wire cut cookies (chocolate chip, chocolate candy, oatmeal, macaroon, vanilla wafer, Butterfinger, ginger snaps)
  • Bite-size sandwich cookies (various flavors including caco (chocolate), strawberry, vanilla, lemon, peanut butter and chocolate-peanut butter)
  • Bite-size rotary cut cookies (shortbread, windmills, animal cookies, butter cookies, oatmeal bars)

A line of 1 5/8" diameter cookies was introduced in 2004:

  • Regular size "Uncle Al's" cookies.

References

External links