About

...as told from the perspective of Jay Brown, as I'm sure Bubbi's persepctive will be vastly different lol.

Where do we start? 

There has been no shortage of entrepreneurial drive within our family and Hoops and Cookies is another child of ours that was born out of love for our family.  

The most common question we get is how does Hoops tie in?  Outside of dunking a cookie in milk, we are a social enterprise that backs mental health within the hoops community, simply because we have experienced the need for this for our own children as we navigate the basketball landscape.

BallHers Academy

Prior to hoops and cookies we had an all girls basketball academy "BallHers Academy", with dreams to open a factory space where could grow our platform and expand our impact.  Covid hit and the realization of investing in that space and potentially needing a multiple 6 figure investment might have been out of our league (well from a belief perspective).

We had been baking and selling cookies to fundraise for our kids basketball ventures, but never with the intent to grow it.  During covid one of our cookie runs went gang buster, which piqued my interest enough to entertain the idea of opening up "something".  Still not really knowing what....it became "a cookie store", lets open a cookie store.

...The Meeting

The idea had become fixed in my mind at least, that I wanted a cookie store for Christmas, it represented a  way to transition from being an employee to business owner.  After being invited by my boss at Chisholm where I was a teacher for 15 years working with young adolescents to a meeting regarding social enterprise and a potential partnership with an outside organisation that would implement a program we could run with our students, I quickly became intrigued with the concept and had a realisation that we should be one.

After working students to explore the space and start their own mini social enterprises, I decided to build one along side them "Hoops and Cookies", I figured the name would give scope to expand the business beyond cookies to cater for all of our creative ideas.

...Today

We have expanded beyond cookies to become a dessert bar.  There really is no limitation to what we could create in this space but have focused on building products around our core products "Cookies".

We specialisein artisan cookie products namely:

The Cookie Bar and Double Baked cookies.  Both a result of either trying to shortcut the production process or born out of mistakes.

The Cookie Bar - A slab style cookie.  I thought maybe if we bake it in a tray we could cut down having to roll so many cookies.  Well a whole new process was born and I have not seen anyone else make cookies quite like this.  We are definitely not the creators of cookie bars but we have refined it to become a fine art.  

 

Double Baked Cookies - After mistakenly adding too many mix-ins, the cookies did not spread as well as we would have liked.  This frustrated me and not wanting to waste any thing, I smashed 2 cookies together and re-baked them.  Well they are still on the menu and one of our top sellers now!  They are BIG, crunchy and soft all at the same time.  It's actually more work for us to produce with the potential for more variables to impact the outcome but we have stuck with and stand by them!!

Now we offer:

• Acai
• Thickshakes
• Sundaes
• Real Hot Chocolates
• Hot Choc Fudge Pudding
• Real Fruit Ice Cream
• Floaters "Ice Cream Floats"

...Moving Forward

What's next?  HxC has evolved and this year (2025) we piloted educational programs, within educational institutions.  Most recently we developed an intensive 8 week program where young people were able to experience business unlike anywhere else.  Powered by brand we were able to deliver mentorship onsite and from within our shop providing a platform for students to engage with business that is relevant and real.  Driven by purpose and passion students were able to create and market real products.  It is very much a new side hustle within the ecosystem that we have created but firmly believe that we are "more than a cookie".

...Collaboration

"If you want to go fast, go alone.

If you want to go far, go together!"

Creating an environment that helps everyone win is one of the the driving factors behind why we do what we do.  We aim to make a positive impact in our family, our community and greater society.  One of the greatest aspects of what we are doing is choosing who we get to work with.

...Vision

There is no limit to creativity, except to not create at all.  Product creation and innovation, merch, popups, expansion, educational programs, social impact, events, collabs and more.