Caroline McGinley, founder of Gringuita Cookies, never planned on starting a business of her own. She always dreamed of traveling, which is how she ended up in Uruguay in 2018 at the age of 23. Caroline landed a job teaching English as a second language in a public high school. Not making a lot of money, she found a dorm-style apartment which hosted about 15 students and professionals from Uruguay, Venezuela, and Cuba. Living in such tight quarters encouraged them to create their own secondary family amongst each other. If they weren’t working or taking class, they found themselves in the communal kitchen cooking their favorite meals from childhood. Caroline grew up baking so her contributions were always some sort of sweet concoction. The “family” favorite was always her stuffed cookies.
Caroline soon found herself selling these quarter pound cookies in Uruguay as a side business due to the encouragement from her family of roommates. “Not only did they encourage me and give me confidence in my abilities, but those who moved from Venezuela and Cuba gave me a courageous and positive mindset. It rubbed off on me in a way that left me forever changed,” says Caroline. The cookies started selling fast and to keep up with demand, she would make the dough balls ahead of time and store them in the freezer. That way, whenever someone would place an order, all she had to do was pop the frozen dough ball in the oven for 15 minutes and she could give her customer a warm and fresh-baked gourmet cookie.
In March of 2020, COVID was on the rise so Caroline made the decision to return home to Florida and quarantine with her family for what she thought would only be a few weeks. As time passed, returning to Uruguay seemed unlikely so she launched Gringuita Cookies as an official bake-from-frozen cookie dough brand in August of 2020. She had just enough money to pay the first and last month’s rent for a commissary kitchen, get a one door freezer, and buy all necessary ingredients. Caroline single handedly bootstrapped the business, growing it organically through word of mouth. While Gringuita Cookies has grown substantially, each of the dough balls are still entirely handcrafted by Caroline and her amazing assistants.
“I am honored to say you can now find my four original flavors in the freezer sections of select Milam’s Markets locations. It has not been easy, but I hope to inspire people along the way so that they, too, can face their fears, listen to their intuition, and follow their dreams.”- Caroline McGinley
