Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachelle & Ava Kooi.
Hi Rachelle & Ava, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Hi, we’re Rachelle & Ava Kooi. We started Le Grand Confections from our love of baking and our need for a job with flexible hours. We are a family with a special needs child, and the ability to work around their needs was very important to us. We started small, just playing around with an inexpensive culinary airbrush machine that we saw someone use on Instagram. After we posted about our new, fun machine, we had family and friends asking us to make cookies for their personal parties! Things expanded from there, and it bloomed into a business that we’re proud to call our own. The name Le Grand isn’t just a fancy title. It’s actually a family name with a rich history that ties back to our legacy of baking through difficult times, being part of our inspiration for starting the business in the first place.
Le Grand Confections is fully run by our mother-daughter team, all the way from taking orders, making dough, rolling cookies, decorating, packaging, delivering, social media management, and more. Being a two-person team isn’t easy and can often become stressful when the workload increases, but it’s worth it to see our creations add to the joy of our customers’ parties, events, and gifts. We are so honored to be a small part of people’s celebrations.
Le Grand Confections has grown a lot in the 7 years we’ve been in business. That growth is contributed to hard work, a love for the creativity of the job, and an amazing local community. The flexible hours and self-run structure allow us to work around the chaos of everyday life. It allows us to make cookies that are unique and creative, while collaborating with the customer to make a perfect, custom set. It also gives Ava time to take French pastry classes, which will lead to our menu expanding in the future.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As most small business owners will tell you, the road is never smooth, but each obstacle offers us a chance to learn and grow. We are blessed to be part of an amazing and supportive community.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
To us, the work we do allows us to artistically express ourselves, using cookies as our canvas and royal icing as our medium. We specialize in decorated cookies and pride ourselves on making our customers’ visions come to life in cookie form. We’re proud of the continued improvement of our artistic skills, which we can look back on via our social media. It’s really fun to see the progression of our work over the last seven years.
To order, customers can contact us directly via Facebook or our business email. We also sell out of a collective boutique in Kearney, Mo, called Urban Edge Co.
What were you like growing up?
Funny enough, we’re actually very different personality-wise. For me, Rachelle, I was very outgoing and loved to socialize, which hasn’t changed. Ava has always been more introverted, but extremely artistic and imaginative. The differences in our personalities serve us very well in our team dynamic. We’re able to balance each other out, with me being more of the realist and Ava being more of the abstract artist.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legrandconfections/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LeGrandConfections
- Other: Business email: [email protected]
