Ep. 108 “Sweet Martha”: From Art Teacher to State Fair Icon
Martha Rossini is the founder of one of the most iconic brands in Minnesota: Sweet Martha’s Cookies. The cookie stand has been a staple at the Minnesota State Fair since 1979. It's expanded to three booths at the fair, helping Martha and her team bake 44,000 cookies every 12 minutes - that's 3 million cookies per day! All of them served in a paper cone or bucket, fresh from the oven.
Before considering cookies, the Sweet Martha’s owners had a frozen yogurt shop in downtown Minneapolis. The first time they applied for space at the State Fair they were rejected. Martha and her team decided to try again, adding cookies to their yogurt offerings. Just three weeks before the start of the State Fair, they found out they were accepted - but for cookies only. Not having a cookie recipe of their own, the team combined all of their moms' cookie recipes to create the perfect chocolate chip cookie.
In this episode of Flip Your Script with host Kristi Piehl, Martha shares how she went from teaching elementary school art to building a cookie empire and some of her favorite State Fair foods.
CHALLENGE FOR LISTENERS:
Say yes.
CLOSING QUOTE
“Use common sense. ”