Pennsylvania biscotti baker relocates to Queensbury, lured by IDA incentives

By Zander Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer

Bucks County Biscotti relocated from Pennsylvania to Queensbury and in January began making its biscotti in a new 6,000 square-foot building near Warren County Airport.

Bucks County sells nearly entirely wholesale, shipping directly to coffee shops and cafes, with some online retail.

Started in 1992 by husband and wife Craig Silbert and Karen Riley, the twice baked cookie business is now headed by their son Riley Silbert, 29, who joined on in 2020.

“I sort of threw a curveball at my parents,” he said. “I was working at a startup in Manhattan. And I had helped grow that company and got the entrepreneurial itch to do my own thing.”

His parents are still involved. He said his mother, Ms. Riley, still “helps lead all of the production.”

He said his parents owned land in Queensbury where they planned to build a retirement home.

“I started talking to the economic development committees up here, and they basically just made me some offers that I couldn’t really refuse,” the younger Mr. Silbert says.

“We had pretty unique home occupation zoning in Pennsylvania. It was like a full scale production bakery, but it was attached to our house,” he said.

In Queensbury, for $41,000, he said, “We purchased three acres of land, which was one of the lots from the IDA, which was held on their books from the county.

“They basically gave a very strong incentive to move up here. Between the cost of acquiring the land, and then basically, like rebates against sales tax for the project and mortgage taxes abatements across a number of years, it represented a lot of money.”

Mr. Silbert said, “We have undergone this two year process building this new facility up here in Queensbury.” Rozell Industries did the construction.

Mr. Silbert said his parents had built a “very successful lifestyle business. It was just the two of them for 26 years,” but “basically the business maxed out at whatever the two of their capacities were. And now we’re building it into more of an organization.”

Mr. Silbert said his goal is to scale up and grow quickly — he mentioned a possible goal of getting acquired by a larger company — a similar business model to many in the start-up world.

Previously Mr. Silbert said he worked for Blockworks — a financial news media company focused on cryptocurrency that he joined in 2017, “like three months into them starting it. And that was the first really brutal bear market. We learned to sort of eat s*** through all of that.

“So then when I came home and took over the biscotti company and COVID hit,” Mr. Silbert said he was prepared.

“I came home to take over everything on March 10 of 2020,” he said. “So the first week that I came in to start overseeing production was when every single coffee shop and cafe stopped ordering and shut down,” he chuckled.

“So we scrambled, we completely rebuilt our whole digital presentation across platforms and created an entire retail line of business. We started shipping smaller scale gift boxes to individuals, as well. That really helped get us through.”

Ultimately, he said retail stayed strong and wholesale returned, and they maxed out their previous production facility.

Mr. Silbert said their biscotti is softer than the traditional version — geared for “third wave” coffee drinkers who don’t want to soften the cookie by dipping it in their expensive drinks.

The biscotti comes in such flavors as Chocolate Dipped Classic, Double Double Dutch Orange Chocolate and Classic Anise Almond, which Mr. Silbert said is their most popular flavor.

The business is wholesale, but for local consumption Bucks County has an “honor stand” at 37 Casey Road, Queensbury. It’s grab-n-go format, “open 24/7 and all the bags are $5.”

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