MONSTER COOKIES.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonal The Register-Guard

In an industrial kitchen filled with the sweet scent of freshly baked cookies, one employee cranked the "cookie depositer," dropping lumps of dough onto a cookie sheet. Another employee paired the lumps, gently patting them into the large rounds that will become a 5-oz. Monster Cookie.

These oversize treats sell for about $1, from glass cookie jars with stainless handles at coffee shops, grocery stores and most Dari-Mart convenience stores, throughout the Eugene-Springfield area and in Corvallis. A favorite of kids, construction workers and university students, among others , they have become practically a Eugene institution.

The company that makes the cookies was founded in Eugene in 1977 by Maggie Ortiz and her two sisters, and then went through several owners until Bonnie Hathaway, 44, bought it 2 1/2 years ago.

Today, Monster Cookie churns out about half a million cookies a year and makes 200 deliveries a week from its facility on Airport Road. Sacred Heart Medical Center, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Lane Community College are among the company's biggest accounts.

Monster Cookie has survived for nearly three decades, and even grown in the past few years, by producing a cookie with a homemade taste that has amassed a loyal, local following.

The home-grown cookie company is able to sidestep direct competition with large, national cookie companies such as Keebler and Nabisco by producing a different product that targets a specific market. Monster Cookie aims for a homemade taste and, like home bakers, it adds no preservatives to its cookies, so they have a shelf life of about a week.

Monster Cookie has found a business niche that is small and not too crowded. Even within the local cookie market, it has mainly managed to avoid head-to-head competition. Cookies Cookies, another local company, is more focused on retail sales. The business , which was founded in the 1970s and has been owned by Karen and Rob Volkenand for the past seven years, sells nine varieties at its store at 3081 W. 11th Ave. Monster Cookie doesn't have a retail store.

Other local bakeries, such as The Bread Stop and Muffin Mill, also sell cookies, but as part of a broader product line-up.

The Bread Stop sells its Jazzy Ginger and Ranger granola cookies at area natural food stores, but its main business is bread. Cookies account for less than 5 percent of The Bread Stop's sales, said manager Rob Rikhoff.

Muffin Mill sells a range of baked goods wholesale and at its retail store at 1820 Prairie Road. The company, founded 22 years ago by Nita Harding, makes 10 flavors of cookies, as well as muffins and scones.

Monster Cookie's familiar brand and loyal customer base also have seemingly protected it from the kind of consumer fads that have cost large national cookie companies big money.

The low-carb diets that became wildly popular in recent years, for example, took a significant bite out of the $6 billion-a-year U.S. cookie market, according to market research reports. Unit sales of packaged cookies dropped 6.2 percent in the year ended March 20, 2004, according to researcher AC Nielsen.

But Monster Cookies sales have steadily increased, Hathaway said.

"My business is growing all the time," she said. "I sell to a lot of kids, and they're not into this low-fat, low-carb craze."

Hathaway said she has received some calls from people asking her to develop a low-carb cookie, but she declined.

"I knew it was a fad," she said, "and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on something that probably didn't taste good.

"I think (gas prices) are going to hurt me a lot more than the Atkins diet," she said, referring to the runaway fuel costs that are making truck deliveries increasingly expensive.

Fad diets haven't affected Monster Cookie's sales, but Hathaway does wonder sometimes whether the long-term health trends of rising diabetes and childhood obesity might eventually affect the business.

She added, though, that the cookies are intended to be a treat, not a meal, so she doesn't see this as a serious danger. Many customers eat part of a Monster Cookie and save the rest for later, or they share it with friends, she said.

Hathaway wasn't born into baking; she taught herself. Previously, she had boarded horses for years. But then her husband died and she found herself looking for a way to support herself and her two children. She built up a pastry business, which she later sold, and then bought Monster Cookie. The bakery makes 10 varieties of cookies, with oatmeal chocolate chip, peanut butter chocolate chip, and regular chocolate chip as the top sellers, Hathaway said.

"People like their chocolate chips," she said.

Hathaway isn't opposed to growing her business, but she resists getting too big because then she'll have to automate her kitchen. That would change the homemade taste and texture of the cookies, she said.

"I don't want to change what people have been buying since 1977," Hathaway said.

Greater automation also would change the atmosphere at the bakery, where employees frost and wrap the cookies by hand.

"We're hands-on here," Hathaway said. "Keeping it manageable and keeping it fun is what's important."

Monster Cookie has about seven full-time employees. That number increases slightly during the company's busiest time of the year: September through December.

Under previous ownership, Monster Cookie had a retail outlet in downtown Eugene across from the post office.

Hathaway said she would consider opening a retail store, but it would have to be in a prime location, maybe near a college or university. And she isn't sure that the increased business cost would be worth it.

A new business area that has started taking off for Monster Cookie over the past nine months is selling cookies wholesale to school clubs and teams to sell as a fundraiser. A Spanish class at Elmira High School is selling Monster Cookies to earn money for a trip to Spain, Hathaway said.

Monster Cookie Co.

Founded: 1977 by Maggie Ortiz and her two sisters

Owner: Bonnie Hathaway

Address: 29496 Airport Road

Employees: About seven full-time

Annual production: About a half-million cookies

Top sellers: Oatmeal chocolate chip; peanut butter chocolate chip; chocolate chip

CAPTION(S):

Monster Cookie owner Bonnie Hathaway turns the crank on a cookie depositer as baker Mat Bryant helps out at the Airport Road business. Thomas Boyd / The Register-Guard A product line with homemade taste is the key.