When Frank Almeida followed his girlfriend to Argentina in 1999, he didn’t realise he was on a one way ticket. With a casual shrug the owner of wildly successful cookie company Sugar and Spice explains: “She got homesick, brought up the possibility of moving to Argentina and I’ve always been open to living outside the US so I said sure.”
Fortunately he found a position in Buenos Aires and the couple set off to start a new life in the Argentine capital. A background in sales, Frank worked a range of jobs before becoming an entrepreneur. “I had never worked in cookies before,” he confesses, adding that his last job was in “corporate sales for a relocation company”.
Cooking their Way Out of the Crisis
Frank soon found that things were very different to his home city of Chicago. “I came here at the beginning of January and I found it a very liveable city, I mean it was very hot but in the subway you could sit down and the buses as well, nothing super-crowded, then comes March and I found out it’s a temporary scene they go through every year, all of a sudden you find out that you can’t even get on the subway!” Nevertheless he concedes that Buenos Aires is “very cosmopolitan, it has its downs which are irritating but it also has its wonders and charms”.
When financial crisis rocked the Argentine economy in 2001 Frank and his girlfriend “decided we wanted to take a little bit more control of our future”. They quit their jobs, started up a handful of business ventures and the company that was eventually to become Sugar and Spice was born.
In the beginning, there were several sugary pies which Almeida had his fingers in. “One of them was an export business in which we exported our own range of organic jams. Then the cookie business took off initially as a catalogue idea where I sold micro-brewed beers as well as American desserts like cookies, brownies, biscotti type things, and then that evolved into Sugar and Spice.”
The organic jams turned out to be a time-consuming process as the couple were starting from zero. He knew it would take at least two years to get things going and find an importer and distributer. “Meanwhile I figured I could do this other thing to keep me busy as well and that was more immediate,” he declares of the foray into cookie production. The inevitable setbacks arose and eventually “I didn’t really think there was going to be much of a future in [the jams] so we let that go. At the same time the cookies were still growing, so we latched on to that.”
But why gourmet cookies?
“I did a study and found out there were several things that were missing and one of those was gourmet cookies. There weren’t any, just supermarket cookies and bakery facturas.” This observation made and the whole process was set in motion, despite the sounds of a few sceptical voices.
“One of the things I heard a lot was that Argentines weren’t really going to go for a gourmet cookie because they already have alfajores. I thought, how do you know if you never give it a try because I can’t find anything similar to what I know in the States here. I’m sure if they tried it they would like it. So I targeted local Palermo Viejo cafés and bars, in the beginning I practically gave the cookies away, but I started getting immediate feedback from people and curiously enough I also started getting calls from local business-owners that would try the cookies and want to sell them packaged in their store. So that’s how it took off.”
Frank now supplies such heavyweights on Buenos Aires’ US-inspired coffee culture scene as Starbucks, Aroma and ice-cream chain Munchis. He explains that in most cases it’s just “us” who develop the recipes, although in some cases a culinary partnership is formed. That “us” turns out to specifically refer to his wife, a prodigious baker who has studied in France and Argentina but had previously never thought to seek profit from her skills despite words of advice from grateful friends
Business the BA Way
Becoming a successful entrepreneur in a foreign language and culture is no mean feat. Frank’s determination shines through in his willingness to acknowledge advantage over inconvenience, declaring of his nationality: “It strikes people’s curiosity. It always seems that they’re more open, more patient with me, it’s a great icebreaker.” He confesses to a hurdle however, conceding that it was hard “to learn all the jargon”. Business customs proved unfamiliar too: “It’s very social here, it’s laidback, it’s more about the relationship.” Unlike in the US, Frank discovered that clients emphasise face-to-face communication and are discouraged by e-mails or telephone calls.
Since its inception in 2002, Sugar and Spice’s popularity has exploded. The company was included in a select group brought to Paris’ Galeries Lafayette ‘Tasting Argentina’ season, adding another jewel to the Sugar and Spice crown: “From what I’ve been hearing in the papers it looks like they’re selling through a lot of the stuff, it seems like it’s a success.”
In honour of the company’s achievement, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner invited Frank to the Casa Rosada for tea. With pride he details her delight with the Barbie purse, an innovatively packaged selection of cookies for young girls and the result of the company’s recent collaboration with Mattel, which he brought as a gift. Seeing la Presidenta enthuse over recollections of her daughter’s love for Barbie dolls when she was younger is not exactly an experience which the average Argentine comes to expect.
That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles
Times have changed since Frank first started on the scene and it is clear his business has made a considerable impact. Speaking of Jumbo, Carrefour and the other supermarkets that stock his cookies, he muses “they didn’t really have a gourmet cookie aisle and now they do.” He accepts that this is part of a wider trend in Argentina for home-made, international, gourmet produce and relates it to the accompanying surge in interest in ethnic restaurants which has taken place since his arrival over ten years ago. He welcomes the competition, with his measured response to newcomers: “I knew when I started this that it would happen. It’s flattering.”
“Even though I was hoping for it and that was my target, it’s still surprising,” enthuses Frank on the remarkable rise of a cookie empire that risks to push the alfajor off its pedestal as Argentina’s favourite biscuit. Sugar and Spice may be a foreign concept run by a North American, but Frank is quick to justify its incorporation into Argentina’s culinary roster. “I have products which are not typically Argentine, but what I do bring to the table is excellence in this type of product, made in Argentina by Argentines.”
The Sugar and Spice shop and factory is located on Guatemala 5419. See www.sugarandspice.com.ar for further information or follow Frank on his blog “Azucar y Especias”.
Great article about the success of a hard-working guy with forward-thinking ideas! Now if only we can get him to create gourmet frozen meals for one!! How I miss them!