Crumbl CEO spills on Bondi pop-up and official Aussie expansion plans
When fans of American cookie chain Crumbl hosted a pop-up sale in Sydney, Australians responded with a mix of confusion and fascination.
When fans of American cookie chain Crumbl hosted a pop-up sale in Sydney, Australians responded with a mix of confusion and fascination.
So did Jason McGowan, co-founder and CEO of the brand, who says his team discovered the event the same way as everyone else: through social media.
McGowan touched down in Sydney this week to expedite the brand’s first official foray into Australia after the nation’s most confusing bake sale.
Speaking to SmartCompany while touring the city, McGowan shared how Crumbl itself encountered the incident, which saw fans of the brand sell imported, days-old Crumbl cookies for $17.50 a piece.
“A lot of our customers were pointing out that Crumbl was coming to Australia, and I obviously knew that was incorrect,” says McGowan.
“We sent it to our team, and they investigated a little bit more, and that’s kind of how we found out.
“So just like some of the customers, we found out about this unauthorised pop-up from social media as well.”
Dispelling speculation the pop-up was some kind of guerilla marketing campaign orchestrated by Crumbl itself, McGowan says the event left him and the team with competing emotions.
“I felt two feelings,” he says.
“The first feeling I felt was, ‘I’m concerned to make sure that the people of Sydney and the Aussies are experiencing the true Crumbl.’”
Crumbl recommends consuming its cookies as soon as possible, but says storage in airtight containers can extend their freshness for up to five days.
The pop-up organisers claim to have kept the cookies in airtight containers during transport, but the baked goods were approaching the end of Crumbl’s recommended serving window when they were sold in Bondi.
“We pride ourselves on absolute freshness, and so when you come to our stores in the United States, you can see the actual eggs getting cracked,” McGowan continues.
“You can see them making all of our desserts in real time.”
Although the pop-up carried the risk of damaging Crumbl’s brand if the products were sub-par (reviews from attendees were largely positive, with a few expressing mild disappointment), McGowan says Crumbl has not contacted the organisers.
“We’re not, at this time, anticipating any legal ramifications for them for the things that they’ve done,” he says.
“And I think, my understanding of it, was that they were trying to bring Crumbl, and the excitement to Crumbl here to Australia,” he adds, albeit in a “misguided” way.
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McGowan’s second feeling was his own excitement.
Since he launched the business in 2017 with cousin and business partner Sawyer Hemsley, the brand has captured attention through TikTok and Instagram, exposing its decadent and camera-friendly desserts to a wide audience.
The pop-up showed that audience exists in Australia.
“When you build a business, you always hope that it will be successful one day, and then when you start seeing it successful all around the world, it’s just kind of an a-ha moment, almost a ‘pinch me’ moment,” McGowan says.
Crumbl, which operates more than 1,000 locations across the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, was open to international franchising opportunities before the Bondi bake sale.
McGowan says Australia was already in the brand’s crosshairs, but excitement around the pop-up convinced the brand to accelerate its plans Down Under.
The brand is now considering its own Crumbl-run stores in Australia, but is prioritising its meetings with potential master franchisors.
“So the silver lining out of this experience is that Aussies will get Crumbl sooner than they would have normally,” he says.
And, perhaps inspired by the Bondi frenzy, the Crumbl team is dabbling in its own marketing stunt: carrying a pink Crumbl box while touring the city.
“I was shocked at how many Australians knew about Crumbl,” McGowan says.
“And they came up and were giving us all kinds of feedback of where we should go. And they were so, so excited.
“So it was so invigorating, the reception that we got just walking around the streets with a Crumbl box.”
McGowan will stay in Australia until Friday, when he and the team will return to the States to formulate the next stage of Crumbl’s official expansion.
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