siness

1111

hat's the way the cookie
crumbles — but not for
35-year-old Birmingham res-
ident Wayne Sonkin, the presi-
dent and founder of Baker's
Choice.
Mr. Sonkin's company, based
in Southfield since 1992, is ex-
pected to gross $10 million in
sales by the end of the year. He
hopes to increase that to $100
million in 1995.
Those are impressive figures
for an entrepreneur who admits
he didn't graduate from Michi-
gan State University because he
didn't take school seriously and
he thought he'd have his own
business someday.
"Let's just say my days at
Michigan State weren't very
fruitful," the Berkley High School
graduate said. "I left before they
asked me to go."
Baker's Choice produces a va-
riety of gourmet cookies, brown-
ies, cakes, muffins and other
sweets.
"We do it all here," Mr. Sonkin
said during a recent tour of his
plant, located at Eight Mile and
Telegraph. "We make the prod-
ucts, package them and whole-
sale them."
The company also has a ware-
house outside of Chicago.
Baker's Choice products are
carried in fast-food outlets, mar-
kets, convenience stores, schools
and factories.
"What I've done is taken a
gourmet cookie and mass-
produced it," Mr. Sonkin said.
"I refer to them as gourmet-
type cookies because they're
not the same as other gour-
met products. We don't use Bel-
gian chocolate and expensive but-
ter."
Mr. Sonkin says his company's
muffins, and chocolate chip,

Timing has been sweet for Wayne Sonkin,
the president and founder of Baker's Choice.

32

PHOTOS BY GLENN TR IEST

T HE D E TRO I T J EWISH

DEBBIE L. SKLAR SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Wayne Sonkin and Valerie Madison check out some Baker's Choice goodies.

Meet Wayne Sonkin,
the "cookie monster."

raisin and vegetarian cookies, are
his top sellers.
During a typical month, Bak-
er's Choice will use 40,000
pounds of chocolate, and make
30 million muffins and 2.5 mil-
lion cookies.
Next year, Baker's Choice
plans to reintroduce a line of fat-
free muffins and cakes. Mr.
Sonkin says his first attempt at
fat-free products in 1985 was
ahead of its time.
"I think we'll do better than be-
fore because the fat-free market
will get a second eruption," he
said.
Timing has been crucial to the
success Mr. Sonkin has enjoyed
so far with his company.
In 1979, during his fourth
year at Michigan State, Mr.
Sonkin was waiting tables at an
Italian restaurant/lasagna shop
when he came up with an idea
for a dessert he called "Godfather
pie."

"I've taken a
gourmet cookie and
mass-produced it."

— Wayne Sonkin

He describes it as a brownie
with a custard filling flavored
with Amaretto.
"Basically, it mirrored the
drink in the Godfather movie,"
Mr. Sonkin said.
Mr. Sonkin sold the pie to his
employer and to other restau-
rants in the Lansing area. That's
when he came up with the name
Baker's Choice for his business.
"I wanted my products to be
the No. 1 choice for bakeries," he
said.
After the Godfather pie suc-
cess, Mr. Sonkin developed a
recipe for gourmet chocolate chip
cookies in the early 1980s and he
began selling cookies wholesale.
"The timing was good because
things were happening in the
market," he said. "Stores were
carrying only basic production-
line cookies and the market was
clamoring for a different type of
cookie."
In 1984, Mr. Sonkin moved his
business from Lansing to Livo-
nia "to come back to my roots. I
had to have enough money to
come back. I was doing quite a
bit of business with a deli chain,
so I was able to move back
home."
Eight years later, Baker's
Choice switched to its Southfield
location. ❑

