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MILFORD — From cookies to cupcakes, two local bakeries are gearing up to make thousands of treats this holiday season.
"We have gotten hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders," said Kathy Klein, owner of Kathy's Famous Cookies. "We get insanely busy during this time of the year. We do so many trays of cookies, and the question becomes where do we fit them."
During the first year of COVID, Klein said their productivity was not affected at all.
"We mailed orders more during that time, but people picked up as many cookies as they do now," she said. "The packaging was a little different to keep everyone safe, but the overall production did not change."
Klein said they start receiving Christmas cookie orders right after Thanksgiving.
"We are jammed through Christmas, and we will probably continue to do hundreds of more trays than we already just scheduled," she said. "I just ordered a thousand more trays, and that's not counting bags of cookies."
While they usually bake about 10,000 cookies a day, during the holiday season that goes up to 30,000 cookies daily, stated Klein.
"There are all different sizes of cookies and types that we bake," she said. "We have a lot of people here, and we all do certain things, but it's never-ending. We also supply some grocery stores with our cookies, which also keeps us busy.
"Cookies are very popular during Christmas," she added. "We have various decorations, and people like the color and the festivity of Christmas with the cookies."
Another location where the production didn't change much during the pandemic was at Sweet Cupcasions.
"COVID didn't really impact our holiday orders in terms of personal orders. It only impacted our corporate orders because people were working remotely and weren't having big holiday parties," said Sue Schowerer, owner of Sweet Cupcasions. "That impacted us, but, thankfully, we didn't get impacted by the personal orders, which stayed the same."
However, over the last six to eight months, Schowerer said their corporate orders have started to come back as more places are hosting holiday parties again.
"We have a cupcake truck, so we are doing a lot of events this month for corporations and businesses as well as family parties," she said. "We just put our holiday menu out, which has more than cupcakes available."
When the lockdown started, Schowerer said they added an online ordering feature to go along with the email and phone call service.
"People could place the order, pay for the order and pick a time to pick up their order," she said. "It worked out because people could take their time to look at the menu and pick out what they wanted."
The busiest time for Sweet Cupcasions is on Dec. 24 and 25.
"During December, we will sell a couple of thousand cupcakes," said Schowerer. "The most popular have been the mini-cupcakes."
"We have a very loyal customer base, and it keeps on growing every day, but I'm thankful for them that they kept ordering from us even during the height of the pandemic," she added.