Cookies United supplies to over one thousand wholesalers, bakeries, and distributors across the country, though most of them are concentrated in the New York area, a representative from the company tells me. In addition to many varieties of butter cookies, the company also sells cannoli shells, anisette biscotti, and bright green pistachio leaf cookies. They sell millions of cookies each year.
According to Cookies United, the cookies are baked on a daily basis at their bakery in Islip, New York. “We have a staff of 100+ bakers, packers, and warehouse employees that work to ensure each cookie is mixed and baked on our 100-foot+ ovens,” a company representative tells me. The cookies are then packaged and moved to one of three warehouses, from which they’re shipped all over the country. You’ll find six-pound packs of Cookies United’s Italian cookies sold from numerous wholesale vendors, including WebFoodStore.com and FoodServiceDirect.com. You can even buy them on Amazon.
Other wholesale cookie operations started as classic brick-and-mortar bakeries. Sicilian baker Salvatore LaRosa immigrated to America in 1901 and started selling cannoli from a pushcart in Manhattan. The operation eventually expanded onto Staten Island with LaRosa’s Pastry Shop, a bakery that’s been in the family ever since.
Over the years, it became more difficult for small bakeries and pastry shops to find quality bakers, the company writes on its website. This led the company to pivot towards wholesale production. In addition to cannoli shells and cream, the bakery sells wholesale biscotti and cookies, including the iconic red cherry butter cookies. Today, according to the LaRosa’s website, nationwide wholesale distribution accounts for a significant portion of the company’s business, while the family continues to operate the retail bakery.
When you consider the scale of most Italian-American bakery operations, it’s no wonder that some outsource the cookie production. Sheer abundance is part of the Italian-American bakery’s institutional DNA: When a customer walks though those glass double-doors, they expect to be dazzled by a display case fully-stocked with cherry-dotted cookies, ladyfinger-collared cakes, and glazed fruit tarts.
Unlike America’s new wave bakeries, where tricked-out croissants bake in small batches and run for upwards of $7 each, Italian-American pastry shops operate en masse. They deal not in single croissants, but hundred-piece platters; most don’t even sell cookies individually, but by the pound. Still, they face the same labor and cost constraints as any small business. Not all Italian-American bakeries have the time or resources to keep up with the necessary volume. That’s where wholesale suppliers come in.
Personally, I have nothing against wholesale cookies. I’ve eaten and enjoyed my fair share over the years and, like certain pre-packaged snacks or childhood cereals, they hit a nostalgia point for me. But they’re entirely different from the cookies made from scratch at bakeries like Veniero’s, Villabate Alba, and Fortunato Brothers. Perhaps seeking to set themselves apart from wholesale-supplied stores, many bakeshops openly advertise the freshness of their products, like Veniero’s, whose website claims, “With a name like Veniero’s, it’s gotta be fresh.”