It's Sweeping the World...And I've Never Heard Of It!

It's sweeping the world and I've never heard of it. It's one more thing, Sack.

I saw a picture of the hot new boy band the other day, the new BTS, Yeah, and I had never heard of them, but they looked exactly like BTS.

K pop again.

Korean fellows Yeah, yeah, kind of a tough looking one and yeah, exactly sporty one.

Yeah.

You know what's funny is because I read fairly voraciously, mostly for this job, partly out of just habit, I do become aware of some of the youth trends. I mean, if you don't have kids, you have to accidentally come across it.

Oh no, if I didn't have kids, there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't know.

Well, right, but I'm thinking about, you know, back in the day, not terribly long ago, the idea of like the Wall Street Journal doing an article on me and my friends saying, you know that kicks ass instead of that's cool. I mean, nobody would care. Nobody would write about it. Old people wouldn't be Older people wouldn't be aware of it. They wouldn't know our hot trend. They would know that Rio Speedwagon recently was hotter than sticks

Ah?

Sam said that to me on Sunday. I am really yeah, came up somehow came up. He said, Oh, every crumbles the hottest thing. Dad, dude. I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Wait a minute, they're so good. We're getting a sex face from Katie.

Michael, They're very good.

The things I would do for Crumble cookies.

Oh don't la la la la. Hr is going I'll.

Lose my toes over those cookies.

Wow, a really dark diabetes joke, but a good one from Michael.

So are they in plastic like oreos? Do I buy them at a store?

Oh?

No, They in a box like donuts.

And they're they're five bucks each, like in seven hundred.

Calories per cookies.

So here's the.

Story, and this is this is it's it's more about the Internet age than the cookies. Every Sunday at eight pm Eastern, tween and teen girls across the country check Crumble cookies.

It's Crumble without the e at the end.

Crumble, they check Crumble Cookies social media to discover the week's newest flavors.

Then they start begging their parents to take them to the bakery for.

Five dollars for a five dollars seven hundred calorie cookie, And like.

Can I go to any grocery store?

Do I have to go to a you have to go to a Crumble cookie.

A Crumble cookie, Okay, yeah, I have them near me. I don't know.

Just a few more details that will probably make it.

Oh, my wife was baking cookies yesterday afternoon.

Holy cats. I just thought, wow, fresh baked cookies.

I mean, yeah, you can't say no to that.

No, And it's just it's we maybe the best smell on earth other than like your baby.

We were at we were at a restaurant the other night, and one of the dessert options were three cookies and a glass of milk. And it was like fifteen dollars or something for three cookies and glass of milk. But they baked them. It took a while to get the dessert. But you had a hot, fresh baked chocolate chip cookie, oatmeal raisin cookie, and then some other kind of cookie and a cold glass of milk. I thought, that's a freaking good dessert right there.

Yeah.

Wow, Wow, you throw a snickerdoodle in there, fresh bake.

Yeah, oh well, I don't think you can top Michael, who is actually diabetic. I give up my toes for that. Jack.

There's a crumble cookie in West sacramentow. You can hit it on your way home.

Th oh, just what I need.

Wow wow.

So it doesn't matter if anyone really likes pink donut, lemon cheesecake or oatmeal skillet cookies.

They feel like they have to have them.

And TikTok YouTube and Instagram videos are fueling the surge. So what's really interesting and the reason I brought it up is the co founders have concocted what the Journal calls a perfect recipe of social media and sugar quote. Our strategy right from the beginning was social media, says Jason McGowan, who started the company. What is this seven years ago? Single storem logan Utah of All Place now

Works for some people. It works for enough people. That happens a teen and tween girls, for instance, happens with many coffee shops in my town when the word gets out the coffee shop and people wait in line for an hour to say they've been there and how amazing it is. I'm the opposite of that kind of person. But if the cookie is good, the cookie is good. I just wonder because like Krispy Kreme Donuts did this, and uh, a lot of the Krispy Kreme locations came

Yeah, that kind of happened with nothing. Bunt cakes too a little bit. They were a little trendy there for a while.

But I I just think bunt cakes, is that what you just said?

Man here today, gone today? That one came and went without me ever hearing about it.

Oh?

Really okay, but it's a shop that only does bunt cakes, but they do little personal ones and they've got all the different flavors, and they come and cute packaging and they were like the big gift for a while. But whatever, Crumble Cookies, I'm looking at their national flavor this week, white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Yes, please, cranberry white chip, which is just a white chocolate chip cookie with cranberry. Now, Joe snicker Doodle cupcake, a warm cinnamon sugar cookie with cream.

Don't make sex noises. I gotta leave if you're gonna make sex noises.

Wait a minute, go back to that description.

All right, your eyes Jack, Yeah, plug yourrs Jack. A warm cinnamon sugar cookie topped with cream, cheese, frosting, and an extra dash of cinnamon sugar. And it looks delightful.

Go no further because the bounds of decency.

But yeah, I would, oh crap, I would wake up next to that cookie and look at it longingly say I think I love you.

Wow. Wow. So the other aspect of real quick, Katie, you describe one of those cookies again.

Oh, I'm looking at pictures now here's Yeah, we'll do the white chocolate raspberry because it sounds great. A smooth cheesecake filling confused with white chocolate, marbled and baked with raspberry jam doing topped with a whipped cream dog and white chocolate curls.

Thanks cookies.

And is that also in high heels also, I'm looking at that high heels and stockings. Oh my god, I'm looking at the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. That is something right there.

I know, stop it, stop it with that.

I remember where I heard of my son. So my son went to our local donut shop the other day and he brought back this crazy donut and it had maple on it, bacon on it, and then some stuff on it. And I said, what's that and he said it's crumble I said what crumble cookie. You don't know crumble cookie? And I said no. So they put crumble cookie on top of the doughnut and the bacon. But

It turns out to one of these Crumble Milk chocolate chip cookies seven hundred and thirty calories.

That is one hundred and forty more than a big Mac. Wow.

So I will rest your souls with this. They make a miniature version of all their flavors and you can get them, and they're only four hundred calories.

That's a lot of calories.

So the others back to this that I find so interesting, aside from cookie lust, which I feel as much as any human being on earth love them. First of all, obviously it was the We designed this with social media and mind. This was our plan. The other part of it is the economic power of girl pop culture, as the movies Barbie and Wicked have shown, as Taylor Swift has shown, that's marketers are aware of it and looking

It's a lot of adults too.

Like I said, with Krispy Kreme donut and this Crumble thing, I'll be interested to see if you can make that last, because you have to be able to still be open a year later when the TikTok challenge craziness of it wears off and it's just a product, are people going to continue to stop buying a regular basis and buy a dozen to bring to work or whatever. I mean, it's amazing to me how many any donut shops I

Oh.

One more business point.

Crumble puts reviews up on their website as people film little tiktoks or instagrams.

Or whatever to review.

They even put the negative ones up there. It's like, hey, we're a community, let's all talk about it and talk about what flavors we like.

And so that's an interesting point of view.

The second point I want to make is a little more cloudy, amorphous, foggy. Corporate America has fully embraced girly stuff for girls at the same time when like the transgender madness.

Is sweeping the schools and.

Girls are pretending they're boys and there's a mass contagion about that. Is it just that with the online thing, people are so easily led down one path or the other, whether it's cookie gorgeon or getting their.

Breasts cut off. I don't know.

I don't know because like you and I are not that person. So if something becomes really popular, my knee jerk reaction is to not want to eat it, wear it, listen to it, whatever. And that's dumb also because sometimes this stuff is good. But that's my knee jerk reaction, as opposed to most people whose knee jerk reaction is that's what people are into. I want to go. I need to go to the coffee shop. I need to eat that donut, I need to wear those shoes, I

Yeah.

Yeah, especially in the modern world with all of its tools and avenues to find out about stuff and get approval and thumbs ups and hearts and all for you agreeing with other people. My final note will be last week's menu included the Oh many of the new cookie varieties are inspired by customer suggestions. Last week's menu included the Brookie pie That is a chocolate chip cookie cradling a brownie, topped with vanilla moose and drizzled with chocolate.

Come on, oh, how are we supposed to stay in shape with this kind of stuff?

Uh?

So that's a pretty clever idea, having new different things every week, that's a pretty good idea. And then you know what, science go ahead, sorry, and just being set up to be able to pull that off.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's clever as hell. So science needs to come up with this some sort of I don't know exactly how you would do it. It would probably involve electrodes and scanners. But you'd be on an elliptical eating and there would be like an arrow. Are you gaining weight or losing weight as you on the elliptical? Maybe you're even jogging?

Yeah, and yeating? And what you're trying to do is just keep the needle in the middle right exactly.

Yeah, you'll break even.

Yeah, up to full on self indulgent as long as you kept the thing going for and you put the donut down for a second.

Okay, I gotta walk a little bit more. Okay, keep thinking of the bite. Just try to keep the needle right in the middle.

I need that.

I need that all day long, right in front of me, that needle.

Yeah, and or you'd think, holy crap, I'm going hard at this elliptical and I'm still not breaking even eating this stuff.

Yeah. That's always rough when you're on the treadmill or whatever for a half an hour and you burn like the equivalent of a half of snickers.

Yeah, yeah, lesson learned.

So I got a donut shop near me. As I've mentioned, it used to be by my old house. I moved, and now it moved, so it seems to have followed me. But interesting thing, I'm amazed by entrepreneurs, people who open up businesses and make a goal of it.

Man.

I really am uh kind of jealous and jealous and idealize people that do that. But anyway, go to that donut shop and like kind of roughly counting the number of donuts in there and rough idea what I think the profit is on prednat. I just can't figure out how they come out ahead. And there's lots of stories like that. I just figured, how can you possibly sell enough donuts to like pay a couple of salaries the electricity? But blah blah blah. I just I don't know how

Bothererate a minute.

I don't mind a fat guy and his fat wife running a donut shop, but super like ridiculously fit, you know those people.

Yeah, we had this in our workplace, remember, Yeah, what's.

Going on with you? You're so fit and you're selling donuts. I don't think you've had a donut in your life? Are you?

Just?

Like what's going on here? You like these mocking the rest of us, lack of like.

The mobs that sell death on the streets the drugs. But if you're one of the monsters, you're not allowed to.

Touch it, right, Yeah? Meaning to ask him about that, Like, do you ever eat? Don't eat a donut in front of me? I want to see you eat a donut for it.

In fact, I'll buy two dozen donuts you eat a donut.

I just want to see you take a bite of one of your donuts.

You guys are gonna start going into donut shops and threatening the fit owners. Eat a donut.

Yeah, you mock me. Eat a donut.

Also, Joe, one more for you, Crumble, Crumble does do a key lime pie cookie?

Come on? Oh yeah, I'm only a man. How can I resist?

I only need three toes on each foot just to a just so I can get by.

That's funny. Well, I guess that's it.