Many of us grew up making cookies with our moms, or still enjoy baking them with our own kids, or just for ourselves – it’s a simple pleasure, putting together sugar, butter and flour and reaping the rewards afterwards. But have you met Kathy Leskow? Ten years ago, the Sherwood Park mom took her love of baking up a notch, embarking on the journey of turning cookies (cupcakes and cakes too) into a thriving business. And, while people around her describe Leskow as a trailblazer and ‘force to be reckoned with’, the modest entrepreneur puts her lasting success down to a couple of things: treating employees like family and keeping things simple.
“We’re not fancy. I still think of myself as a small-batch, local bakery – not an assembly line,” says Leskow of the 1,400 square foot Sherwood Park bakery (and a later addition, 1,400 square feet for a retail shop and offices) she’s had from the start. While cookies are her bread-and-butter, so to speak, (chocolate chunk and confetti sugar cookies are her top sellers, and the bakery can turn out several hundred a day), there have been milestones along the way that have taken Confetti Sweets from neighbourhood bakery to influential community business.
Awards and mementos line a shelf in the upstairs offices at Confetti Sweets, representing an eventful decade in business. There’s recognition from the local chamber of commerce, thanks for charitable giving to local nonprofits, and photo books showcasing a couple of marquee events: an invitation to be part of the Canadian Country Music Awards in Edmonton in 2014, followed by scoring big as a provider of cookies (what Leskow jokingly describes as full fat, full sugar, real cookies) for the celebrity goodie bags at a pre-awards Hollywood Oscars event in 2015 and 2016. That was the highlight of her career, Leskow says, and it raised the bakery’s profile. All of a sudden, people knew about Confetti Sweets.
She didn’t come to baking in a linear way, though. After high school, Leskow was off to study marketing in southern Alberta, which led to stints as an event planner, teaching English overseas and working as a sales manager for a hotel in Japan. It wasn’t until she started baking cakes for her young daughters’ birthdays (daughters Kaitlyn and Jaida, and son Davis) many years later, and realizing she had ‘horrible’ decorating skills that a change of course began. After taking classes on decorating and making chocolate, a new venture started to take shape.
“I started at the farmers’ market in Sherwood Park in 2008, calling it Confetti Sweets because it was like throwing things up in the air and seeing what comes down,” she remembers. “It was a mish mash of cookies and squares, and sometimes I’d do a whole day of baking, go to the market and come back home with all of it.” That tenacity not only served her well, it made an impact with others too.
“Kathy is a force; we owe a lot of our drive to Kathy,” says friend and fellow local maker Chad Stewart, of Chocolicious (chocolate coated licorice treats). That product has long been the biggest seller in the Confetti Sweets retail space. “She was a year ahead of us at the markets and she’d share her successes, her contacts. She was already on a roll then, and I’d go to her with ideas about selling wholesale etc. I watched her grow her small business and saw her willingness to take chances.”
One such chance came when Leskow signed on to sell dry cookie mix to Costco in Japan. That much growth (and volume) came too quickly, she says, so she pulled the plug on that venture after just one order. It was a similarly hard decision to close the company’s second retail spot in west Edmonton more recently, consolidating all efforts back into the Sherwood Park space.
“That’s always been the struggle; how to achieve a work/life balance,” says Leskow, who navigated a divorce and shared raising her children as she dealt with business ups and downs. “Do I take the risk and keep going with something? It was so hard to get to where I was; I’ve never wanted to give up. I like to try things, see if it works. I roll with the punches.”
Leskow has found success using the bakeshop as a hub for local makers; some 70 Canadian and local creators have goods for sale (from jewelry to frozen food) alongside her cupcakes and specialty cookies, including a decadent flavour of the month variety. “My philosophy is that if someone comes in and asks, “Did you make this? We can say ‘yes’. For our products, everyone in the bakery is trained on all equipment, ovens, and in making the cookies from scratch.”
In the double-bay industrial kitchen/retail space, over a dozen full and part time employees create cookies, cakes and cupcakes seven days a week. Four ovens start running at 5 am, baking off goods for sale on-site, or rolled into cookie balls and frozen for delivery to customers like Sysco wholesaler. A dry cookie mix (in several flavours) is sold in grocery stores around Alberta (Sobeys, Save-on Foods, Freson Bros, Calgary Co-op, and more).
Leskow credits her staff for helping grow the company despite whatever challenges have come along. The core crew includes sales manager Shannon Chambers, operations manager Danielle Power, supervisors Susana and Tristina, and marketing mavens Vanessa Lukanuk and Heather Rolhesier. From team-building events, like attending haunted houses or Oilers games together, to just maintaining a light atmosphere in the kitchen, Leskow says staff satisfaction is a priority.
“Kathy gave me opportunities – I went from being a mascot to a cookie maker. It put me through university,” says Rachel McAmmond, who worked for Confetti Sweets for a decade. “Seeing Kathy dress up as Cookie Monster one Halloween is a great memory, and working the markets at Christmas too. She has a growth mindset, with world cookie domination as her goal. It was from her that I learned about spreading the joy of a cookie.”
Leskow admits she’s better with priorities now than in the early days of the business. As the CEO (cookie eating officer), the now 48-year-old juggles a blended family, a regular work day and a five minute commute with a never-ending to-do list in her head.
“I’m always thinking of new opportunities – should we do a cheesecake or cinnamon buns, franchise the business, chase more corporate business with custom branded cookies? But we decided we weren’t going to do anything crazy this past year; we’re good where we are right now,” she says.“The most important thing is to look at something and decide if it makes sense for us.”
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