How a British baker built the $13 million Cookie Dough brand that cracked America

There is a fate that every UK consumer brand founder fears, and it takes the form of major challenger brands heading to the US to die.

It is also difficult to avoid. The distances are greater, the retail spend is heavier, the incumbent category is louder, and the real costs of sitting on the shelf – trade spend, shopper marketing, demos, logistics, freight, frozen chain integrity – are so enormous that they often erase the perceived opportunity.

If you’re a founder without elastic capital, there’s a chance the US could end your career. Then there is Doughlicious founder Kathryn Bricken. The Florida-born, London-based founder of the £10M+ ($13M+) cookie dough snack brand is currently on track to expand to 5,000 U.S. store doors.

Bricken founded the company in 2017 from her Fulham kitchen as a self-taught baker. Today she leads a team of 50 across the UK and US, producing more than a million cookie dough and gelato bites every week.

But while the scale is impressive, it’s how she did it that’s the real story.

A case study in the power of vertically controlled manufacturing in challenger CPG, Bricken refused to compromise on product quality at every step. No manufacturer could match the consistency and texture she got at home, so instead of lowering the bar or reformulating the scale, she built her own factory.

“That was the hardest part,” she says. “I’m not just growing a brand – I’m running a factory. But I wouldn’t trade it. I feel better knowing we’re offering customers the best.”

As counterintuitive as the investment or the added stress may seem, that factory is now the reason they can respond more quickly to trends, trial flavors quickly and protect quality in a category where ultra-processed, high-volume incumbents dominate price.

And her brand’s positioning is just as unlikely. Bucking market trends, Doughlicious has not created a “healthier cookie dough” for the mass market, but a premium, indulgent snack with “better ingredients” that makes no apologies for its higher cost.

“The competitors who produce large volumes use the price to increase awareness,” says Bricken. “Our job is to win the process. Once people taste the difference, they understand the value.”

And the numbers suggest she’s right. Doughlicious products are now in 1,850 UK stores, including Tesco, Morrisons, Ocado, et al. In the US, they are present in 220 retailers, including Target and Whole Foods, with a pipeline targeting 5,000 US store doors by the end of 2025. The brand has also won more than 20 Great Taste Awards, a Nexty Award and a Mintel Innovation Award along the way.

To be fair, Bricken has nailed its brand positioning. And is unusually lucid in its narrative – ultimately unsurprising, given its background producing West End shows such as Jersey Boys, Anything Goes, Cabaret and Rocky Horror.

“At its core, theater is storytelling, and so is branding,” she says. “We don’t just sell cookie dough. We create moments of joy and nostalgia. We reminisce about baking with loved ones, the anticipation of warm cookies from the oven, the indulgence of sneaking a bite of raw dough.”

It’s not just rhetoric either. The health credentials – gluten-free, no refined sugar, no artificial additives – are there, but they support cast members, not the lead.

This might be the post-Ultra-Processed playbook; indulgence as a premium experience with standards, not as a chemically optimized impulse purchase.

Of course, Doughlicious’ U.S. expansion still comes with challenges. “What works in Britain doesn’t translate,” says Bricken. “The US is five times the size. The media spend, the sampling programs, the shopper marketing – everything costs significantly more to achieve the same level of penetration.”

And then there are the logistics. In the UK, a frozen product can realistically reach most of the country within a single distribution center and one time zone. In the US, multiple distribution centers, long-distance cold chain experts and significantly more sophisticated logistics are needed to protect product quality and availability.

This is the part that most outsiders underestimate. Shelf space is expensive to gain, but even more expensive to keep.

Fortunately, Bricken’s team has received strategic help from experienced capital. The Bata Family Office Triple B was supported early. Rich Products Ventures – Doughlicious’s first US investors – are unlocking the foodservice insights and doors that most small UK snack brands take years to access. The Angel Group brings pattern recognition from other stories to CPG scale.

“These are not passive investors,” says Bricken. “They challenge my thinking and help me make better decisions,” she says.

“Resilience is key. Unfortunately, as a female founder you often have to work harder to be taken seriously, to prove your credibility and to access the same networks and capital that seem more readily available to male founders.

“My advice: stick to your vision, don’t compromise on what you believe in, but remain flexible in how you get there.”

She is very vocal about hating management as a concept, but understands culture as the lever. “As a founder, I am very involved,” she says. “I don’t have an office. I hotspot and exercise. My favorite part of the business is still product development and quality. But I’ve learned to focus on creating a culture that attracts smart, motivated people who are as passionate about growing Doughlicious as I am.”

There is also a life context. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019 and continued to work through surgery and radiotherapy. She is not romantic about it, but she is very clear. “When you’ve been dealing with something as scary as cancer, you stop sweating the small stuff and become focused on what’s really important.”

As a result, Bricken’s success is not abstract. Or typical. She was a self-taught baker, with no employees and no manufacturing partner, yet she was so committed to quality that she built an entire factory to protect it and destroyed America in less than a decade.

The next phase? Global stupidity.