All I Want to Do Is Make Cookies | 5 Minute Video
Most small businessmen have enough problems improving their product, marketing and meeting payroll. When Uncle Sam and his state and local cousins get involved, life and business invariably get harder. Common sense regulation benefits everyone. But there is a level of regulation that benefits no one – except bureaucrats. In this video, Joseph Semprevivo, founder and CEO of Joseph’s Lite Cookies, gives his not-so-sugar-coated account of how the government too often hinders much more than it helps.
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Script:
I own a small business with seven employees. We make cookies—but not just any cookies. We make sugar-free cookies that diabetics can eat. Actually, they’re so tasty, anyone can enjoy them. That was the inspiration that motivated me to start this business.
You see, I am a diabetic myself. I have been one my whole life.
If you think running a cookie company is fun and games, think again. I work a hundred hours a week—which isn’t unusual for small business owners. I make a nice living, but I’m not in it for the money. I love what I do.
I’d better. My margins are very tight—around 1%. That means I have to sell a million dollars’ worth of cookies to make $10,000. Every penny counts—literally. That’s why I get so frustrated with government regulations.
Now, let me be clear: some regulations are necessary—especially, for obvious reasons, in the food industry. But “necessary” and “excessive” are two entirely different things. Excessive, UN-necessary regulations soak up valuable hours of my time and my money for no good purpose.
That 100 hours I work per week? I estimate 36 of them are spent on compliance issues alone. This keeps me away from activities that would help me grow my business—like sales and product development.
And that keeps me away from hiring more people.
My employees are like family to me. It’s that way with most small businesses. But it’s a struggle every single day.
I could be more productive and feel a lot less anxiety if I didn’t have to fight my own government; or, should I say, governments—federal, state and local. I get the roads and the bridges and the national defense, but I don’t get why they have to be involved in every tiny aspect of my business, sometimes competing with each other as to who can make my life more difficult.
For example, as a bakery, I’m under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Department of Agriculture, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). I also have to deal with the state health agency.
They all have different rules. If these rules contradict one another, it’s not their problem; it’s mine.
A few years ago, the FDA inspector showed up for one of his random inspections. He noticed the door to the area in which we bake our cookies swung out as you walked in. He told me that was a code violation. The doors have to swing in. I had 30 days to fix it or I’d be fined thousands of dollars.
I should note we have an air curtain between both rooms so no food particles can get in or out of the baking area. I pointed this out. The inspector was unmoved.
A few months later, the inspector from the Ag Department shows up for one of his random inspections. He notices that the door swings in. Yes, I tell him. It does. It’s an FDA regulation.
No, he tells me, it has to swing out. Fix it within 30 days, he says, or you’ll be fined.
I started keeping two sets of doors: one that swings in for the FDA, and one that swings out for the Ag Department.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/video/all-i-want-to-do-is-make-cookies
source
ITAR rules exist to reduce the government and the Military Industrial Complex choices in contractors and to increase the cost of production of armaments.
You make food. People ingest food. You should be held to the highest standards of regulations. You're door problem, r/thathappened. The not labelling an ingredient that is a potential allergen, you're fault. This whole video was some tubby cry baby telling us how he was cutting corner and got caught doing it. Suck it up and do what you should be doing or stop running a business.
Could happen but notice your "small business" has a large international presence…..
This guy isn’t a “small business owner.” He literally owns a large factory with over a HUNDRED employees in New Mexico. Look it up.
Government stupidity, it’s more about bureaucratic control!
Republican propaganda is wilin
It’s really astounding how many stupid rules exist and we never heard of them. We need to create a special community to review and override all these stupid rules
It's not about the public good. It's about power.
America needs to wake up to the idea of Food Freedom, which we don't have. Government doesn't need to be involved in "food safety." Look it up – when you control the food, you control the people. We shouldn't need a gov stamp of approval to sell cookies to our neighbors.
I do agree about the outrageous regulations. But I am curious as to where his business is located because I thought food and restaurant regulations were done at the state level not federal.
I’m sorry but I’m calling BS on this dude. Sell 1 million just to profit 1000? If that were true he wouldn’t have even been able to start his business. that is just ridiculous and outrageous and a lie. Maybe on the low end sell 1 million to make 100,000. I can sell cookies from my home and if I sold $10,000 worth of cookies I’d most likely profit about 8 to 9000. Arguably I wouldn’t have any overhead such as running a business from commercial real estate.
Who can argue that our government is evil?
Prageru has common sense!
If your margin is 1% then you need to find a new model business, Cartman cosplayer
"I work 100 hours a week,"
Oh yeah… sure you do. Post the security camera footage of your restaurant. If anything, that just means you are being inefficient/bad at running a business.
Wow that is a tight margin
Own NOTHING, live HAPPY…That's what the government wants….
I did some research on this Joseph guy, and this guy is far from a "small business". His company is an international business who has had several awards and has written column pieces for the washington examiner and the wall street journal. That is far from your local store in your town or city that has one restaurant in existence. PragerU really stretched what small business actually means. This guy's business bakes 12 million cookies per day, if he sell every single one that by his words $9-12 million dollars. His business is worth over a million dollars and I doubt that he has tight profit margins.
Is it america or ccp run china .
i get the idea. liberal employees dont is the problem. they think you make $500,000 profit for every million sold while they stand around and do nothing half the week for $20 an hour
they aint testing them. they just eating them
One of my favorite PragerU videos.
4:16pm NZDT
15 Nov 2022
This guy is not a "small business owner." His cookie factory makes over 12 million cookies a day. He didn't cite either of the regulations that he supposedly violated with the swinging door BS. He complains about having to send a batch of cookies to a lab when he's likely sending an inconsequential amount to his product line. What a hack.
Dang government, let the make bake his cookies.
Anytime someone has a dream. A government bureaucrat is born.
There not being tested there being TASTED.
This was another episode of “Why the Government Shouldn’t Exist.”
When he said "We make sugar free cookies that diabetics can eat" I already stopped the video. How are cookies going to help diabetics? So you're putting sorbitol in them and you believe that's going to cure diabetics somehow? Look at you, you're still overweight yourself. In my country working more than 40 hours a week is illegal. If you take 60 hours of your working schedule you can spend that time on physical exercise.
This video made me want to eat cookies
Those extremely strict regulations are there because if you don’t follow them they can put people in danger. Some of them are very dumb but you have to have extremely strict regulations because if not it gets hard for you to determine the law. Doors swinging the wrong way can lead to people dying in fires. It’s dumb but it’s the way the law works.
He dedicates over 100 hours a week to his work. If you do the math, that adds up to over 14 hours a day.
No regulations are necessary. They are all burdens.
Ok, the coconut cookies thing was on him.
add a "government regulation surcharge" to the sale. Eventually people will get the point and stop electing #$@#$% that bully businesses. Especially when they realize it's them that ultimately pay that price.
Wait, so is this satire or not? Because there is no way someone could actually post this unironically. On the other hand, this is PragerU we are talking about.
This is so true. It's painful to watch this video because my husband and I live it everyday.
100 hour work week is normal?how on earth?i work 8 hours per day and that's too much.
Sometimes regulations conflict because they are trying to protect two different things. For example, protecting the employees making the food or medicines (regulations to keep the employees safe) versus protecting the food or medicines the employees are making (regulations to keep the food / medicines clean). I don’t know the particulars in this case, so I don’t claim to understand the conflict or to have an answer. I only point this out, and that it can be challenging.
The Lesson? Don't start a cookie business, or any food related company.
32 BAGS!?!? Cookie monster owns that lab
4:37 I really have a hard time saying that if you eat a bag of coconut cookies while you're allergic to them because they didn't say "May contain Nuts" that you should be allowed to live.
There's a limit to how stupid a human being can be.
Lol I found the problem; the FDA WANTS YOUR FREE FOOD!
Why would people dislike this
👏👏👏
“Hey there’s a guy outside with a clipboard 📋🧐…” oh sweet Jesus! Looks like FDA… quick…. Get the FDA door il stall him as long as I can 🚪😧
so funny made my day
4:30 Who enforced the allergy section requirement in the packaging? The FDA or the Department of Agricultural?
for context:
this man owns a cookie company with an international presence, and his factories produce millions of cookies a day.