business

When Karl Benson was hired in 1997 as general manager of Cooks of Crocus Hill, the St. Paul-based kitchenware retailer and cooking school, he was handed the daunting task of restoring growth to a business that had flattened out at about $850,000 in annual sales.

By any measure, he succeeded with the addition of a satellite store in suburban Minneapolis, a cooking-school program that corporate clients use for team-building and another cooking event that focuses on healthy lifestyles.

By the end of 2007, Cooks' revenues stood at $2.8 million, which figures out to a creditable annual growth rate of nearly 13 percent since 1997.

Which is downright impressive considering the wave of adversity that has hammered the company in the past four years, triggering a 30 percent sales decline from a 2004 peak of $4 million.

Consider the challenges, none of which could be blamed on the diversification strategy: a key partnership that crashed when the partner was acquired; a mall store that went bust when the landlord's revitalization project was aborted, and a store opened last summer by a national housewares chain three doors down from a Cooks location in Edina's 50th-and-France retail mecca.

Oh, yes, then there's the slowing economy, which is affecting retail sales nationwide.

The way Benson sees it, the diversification effort that kept the company afloat and profitable despite these setbacks bodes well for the future.

"I think we've put together a strong platform for growth as the economy recovers," said Benson, who has graduated from general manager to owner of the iconic business based on St. Paul's Grand Avenue.

The platform has a fairly broad and, for the most part, sturdy foundation, starting with a novel approach to corporate team-building that has attracted a half-dozen imitators in the 10 years since I introduced you to the concept.

The idea is to divide 15 to 50 participants into teams and give them recipes and ingredients for creating a four- to five-course meal, all in the name of camaraderie and strengthened relationships.

The first client was General Mills, which sent a group of employees from several departments who had been assigned to plan the introduction of a new product. The foray was so successful that the Big G remains a major client, running 8 to 12 team-building sessions a year.

"We went in as acquaintances," Karen King, a General Mills marketing analyst, told me then. "We came out far more open and comfortable with each other."

The upshot: Team-building now accounts for upward of 10 percent of Cooks' annual revenues, the product of 15 to 30 events a month.

And now Benson is intent on leveraging those corporate relationships into a new offering called "Life Recipe," which targets employee wellness programs with a cooking class that combines health and nutrition principles developed by the Mayo Clinic with cooking and exercise instruction.

Introduced to the public in 2006, "the classes sold out from the start," said Benson, 47. "It's very popular." He conceded that a slowing economy has cut into Cooks' corporate business, but he sees those events as the key to resurgent growth when the economy picks up speed.

Cooks' dealt several setbacks

Benson has come up with other promising expansion strategies that have not ended so well. A "vendor partnership" with Marshall Field's forged in 2002 is an example.

The retailer licensed the Cooks name and used Benson and his crew to design and merchandise a space for the upscale cookware and train those who would be doing cooking demonstrations. Marshall Field's then rolled the concept out to 15 stores, making it one of Cooks' major revenue producers.

Alas, the retailer then was acquired by May Department Stores, which was gobbled up by Federated Department Stores, which turned the chain into Macy's, which had its own house brands. In 2006, Macy's dropped Cooks and other vendor partners.

Whereupon Benson came up with an idea to turn those lemons into at least a small pitcher of lemonade: As he explained, "The Marshall Field's partnership was essentially a consulting relationship," bringing culinary expertise to the design, merchandising and programming of the cookware shops. So he added consulting to Cooks' list of offerings, helping clients with branding and menu planning.

The most painful setback was a store Benson opened in 2005 at Southdale, where a revitalization project promised to boost waning traffic at the aging mall. But a month after he signed the lease, the mall was sold and the improvement project was aborted.

"And we got creamed," Benson said. "The store barely paid the rent" in the 15 months it was open. "It almost cost me the business."

The Edina store, a smaller version of the Grand Avenue flagship opened in 1999, has been more successful -- although it also faces challenges: The national chain Sur La Table opened a larger store three doors down the street last summer, and the new competition coupled with the economic slowdown have forced a small decline in sales, he said.

Despite the problems, Benson remains optimistic.

"We're like the phoenix," he said, "a scenario of growth, crash and rebirth."

Dick Youngblood • 612-673-4439 • yblood@startribune.com