The military just got its own cookies.
San Diego cookie executive Clifford J. Smith tonight will introduce a batch of cookies printed with the emblems of the U.S. Armed Forces.
The aptly named “Stampers” cookies will debut at the National Military Family Association’s 35th annual dinner at the Capital Hilton Hotel.
The cookies are vanilla almond, though Mr. Smith plans to add more flavors.
They are part of a patriotic business Mr. Smith, 44, cooked up after the September 11 terrorist attacks and anthrax-laced letters killed a technology business venture he was starting with the U.S. Postal Service.
“The idea was to have something to rally around our troops in a simple way,” said Mr. Smith, who has spent 25 years in the hospitality and food industries.
Mr. Smith regrouped and invested about $120,000 in the two-year period to form the cookie company, Cookie Club of America Inc., of which he is president.
He won a licensing agreement with the Postal Service in May 2003 to use its emblem on the cookies, then he asked the seven military branches and the National Military Family Association Inc., an Alexandria nonprofit that assists military families, to use the emblems.
“It’s amazing how quickly the branches wanted to get on board when they saw what I was doing,” Mr. Smith said.
All seven branches gave their approvals within a few weeks of the initial request for the emblems to be used, he said.
Part of the proceeds from the expected cookie profits, about 5 percent, will go to the National Military Family Association.
“I wanted to align the company with a charity that doesn’t just serve one branch of our Armed Forces, but all of them,” said Mr. Smith, who has several family members who served in the military. One of his brothers, Steven, serves in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.
Kathleen Burke, development director at the association, said the approval to team up with Mr. Smith was the quickest granted by the group’s board of governors, taking only a few days to get a unanimous vote.
“We often get solicitations from people wanting to get close to military families to make money off them. But this tie-in was fun and very appropriate,” Ms. Burke said. She received about 50 product-placement calls like Mr. Smith’s in the past year.
Cookie Club will start selling the cookies online at www.cookieclubofamerica.com by mid-May. Mr. Smith said he hopes to have the cookies in a national retail store later in the summer, adding that he is negotiating with two retail chains.
Jean-Jacques Foucherot, Cookie Club chief executive officer, said a box of 18 cookies will have an average retail price of $2.99 to $3.99.
“About 55 percent of that price goes to covering the cost of goods,” said Mr. Foucherot, who recently led Miss Meringue-Champagne Bakery Cafe, a San Marcos, Calif., bakery chain.
Mr. Foucherot, a French citizen who is quick to state his support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, said the company outsourced production of the cookies to two Los Angeles manufacturers that he did not identify for security concerns.
The cookies have 65 calories apiece. With no trans fat or cholesterol, they could be touted as “low-fat” under the Food and Drug Administration guidelines, but Mr. Smith said he is more focused on emphasizing the slight hint of cinnamon sugar wrapped in the crunchy morsels.
“Cinnamon sugar is one of those common flavors you have at holidays. That taste can bring a little bit of home to a soldier eating it over in Iraq or Afghanistan,” he said. He is in the midst of trying to send some free boxes to Iraqi children and U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr. Smith admitted some of the Stampers’ success will hinge on tonight’s reception by government officials and military personnel at the dinner.
He speeded up production time by two months to have 3,500 boxes available to guests at the dinner, marketers and the press. “But we’ve already gone through the biggest challenge of going through the red tape, so now it’s just keeping up with the demand we’ll hopefully get,” he said.
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