One taste and Kristi’s Key Lime Cookies remain in memory, a very delicious memory.  Kim Casciero currently co-ops a kitchen buy is in the process of building our her own wholesale production facility on Bonita Beach Road.  Her new business started with Be Happy Cakes is now narrowly focused on one item, cookies. 

Owner and creator of Kristi’s Key Lime Cookies, Casciero left successful careers in graphic arts printing and finance in Baltimore for her permanent move to Naples in 2009.  She was previously a snowbird for many years.  As primary caregiver for parents, she needed a career with flexible time. 

Casiero, who spent her childhood beside her grandmother baking, made specialty cakes for all occasions that she fave to friends and colleagues for years.  She knocked on doors to sell Be Happy Cakes to local restaurants and businesses in Southwest Florida, specializing in Florida flavors, often key lime. 

Not finding a key lime cookie that was beyond “little white powdered things, ” she researched recipes until she created her original key lime cookie, a vanilla cake-like base topped with a key lime icing, a taste and texture some describe as “scrumptious”.  Casciero put her graphic arts in play  with a colleague and fiend to design the packaging, bright key limes on a clear package that shows the treat inside. 

“I have plans for future packaging in special cups and containers,” said Casciero.  Her current cookie product came to the attention of the 2012 Emmy Awards.  Their famous gift bags included the taste of Florida, Kristi’s key Lime Cookies.  Orders received from the coupons tucked inside came from everywhere.  She only sells wholesale and from the website.

Just like the cakes, she carried her cookies door to door and the best hotels and gift shops across  Southern Florida, including Key West, sell them or give them as gifts to VIP guests.  Naples Botanical Gardens was her first customer, and a place she enjoys.

“I had lots of help from friends,” said Casciero.  “My long-time friends from Baltimore help each other.  Several pitched in to provide marketing and sales help.  When the new production facility takes off, I look forward to adding staff beyond one part-time employee.”

Casiero has tapped a market for fresh food that does not contain preservatives.  She believes the trend is toward the unique flavors that aren’t created for their self life but rather enjoyed immediately, baked to order and shipped fresh.  To order go to kristiskeylimecookies.com.

By D.K. Christi, Southwest Spotlight, Business Beat