The only way is up for the yoyo cook
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Joanne DeLorenzo once had a most unusual dream – about a production line making yoyo biscuits. Eight years later that dream has become a reality, and she is now running a successful homemade cookie business. One afternoon, while baking yoyos for her children’s lunchboxes, she was reminded of her dream 18 months earlier and believed she had stumbled on a business idea. With her four children growing up quickly, she had decided it was time to rejoin the workforce. She had trained to do technical drafting, but this time she’d prefer working from home, and now she had a plan: she knew exactly which market to tap into. “I’ve lived in the Colac area from the day I was born so knew the town and knew the people,” Mrs DeLorenzo says. “So I started off making a small number of biscuits in my kitchen at home for a couple of local shops and the bakery in town. “It wasn’t long before I was baking about 200 biscuits a week and word of mouth alone was generating business.” YoYos By Jo was born, and soon began to gather pace. She now employs a couple of part-timers and bakes about 3000 biscuits a week, including about 1500 yoyos, in her new, purpose-built kitchen. Although Mrs DeLorenzo chose to grow her business slowly, she knew the way forward was by following the local tourist route. “It’s just been mind-boggling,” she says. “The Great Ocean Road is our biggest asset. Right the way along it there are little local produce and gift shops, and delis that sell produce made from around the region. At the end of the day, that’s what the tourists want: a local experience - they want to sample the produce of the region, the food, the wine, the local art and culture. “The community here is very supportive and we have great access to everything. I really doubt whether I would have started this business at all if I’d been in Melbourne.” |
