Are you feeling bored and looking for a new hobby to pass the time? Well, you never know where that hobby might lead you! Just ask Mona Route, a 27-year-old waitress from Melbourne, Australia, who turned her lockdown boredom into a booming cookie business.
Mona lost her job at an airport in Melbourne when the pandemic hit in March 2020. With all the free time on her hands, she decided to take up baking as a hobby. Little did she know that this simple pastime would turn into a lucrative business venture.
“I was so bored,” Mona admits. But that boredom led her to experiment with dessert recipes, specifically loaded cookies. These cookies are made with baked cookie dough that encases a sweet filling like Malteser spread or melted Kinder Bueno. When you bite into the cookie, the filling oozes out, making it an irresistible treat.
Mona’s family and friends loved her loaded cookies, and that’s when her dad suggested she start selling them. Without wasting any time, Mona set up her own cookie business called Mona’s Treats. She created an Instagram account and invested $500 (£282) in ingredients for her first batch.
In the beginning, Mona was selling around 30 to 40 cookies a month, but her business quickly grew. Now, she receives a staggering 450 orders every month, sometimes even waking up at 2 am to keep up with the demand. During the height of lockdown, she was selling as many as 700 cookies a month.
Despite having a new frontline job, Mona still manages to keep up with her cookie business as a side hustle on her days off. And it’s paying off! Mona now makes an impressive £1,700 every month from selling cookies, and she has turned over £14,000 since she started.
Mona’s dream is to eventually bake full-time in a commercial kitchen. “Hopefully one day I can do this in a commercial kitchen,” she says, determined to take her business to the next level.
So, if you find yourself feeling bored during lockdown, don’t underestimate the power of a hobby. You never know – it might turn into a successful business venture, just like Mona’s Treats.
