All The Deliciousness: A Byrd Cookie Company Factory Tour

Scotch Oatmeal cookies were our gateway drug.

We’d first discovered Byrd’s Cookies while we were visiting Charleston, South Carolina. Their store drew us in with a free Scotch Oatmeal cookie outside, then got us hooked with the free samples in the store.

Georgia Peach. Key Lime Coolers. Pink Lemonade. All cookies. All covered in white powder. Every single one addictive.

It was at their Charleston location that we found out that you can go on a Byrd Cookie Company factory tour at their home in Savannah, Georgia.

Our hopes initially raised, they were dashed when we found out that you need a group of ten people for a tour. Our 50 state road trip consists of two of us (well, three including Truffles), well short of what we needed.

We called Byrd Cookie Company anyway to see if we could join someone else’s tour, but alas – there was none. Lisa – the employee who usually gives the tours – told us to visit anyway and she’d give us a short tour, although it wouldn’t involve going back into the bakery area.

The morning we were due to visit though, a miracle occurred. A family had booked a tour and Lisa called us to ask if we’d like to join them. Um, do the Peppers like cookies?

So just after lunch (we made sure we’d left space for cookies), we found ourselves at our cookie Mecca – the Byrd Cookie Company factory tour.

We took our photo with Mr Cookie Jar whose name we later discovered was Crumbles.

Once inside, we put on hair nets as no one wants our locks in their Scotch Oatmeal cookies.

The tour began with Lisa giving us some history of the Byrd Cookie Company, a family-owned company that’s now on it’s 5th generation (although the 4th generation is still running the company overall.)

She then showed us a video which shared some of the cookie-making process, interviews with the owners and more.

One of the family members from the 5th generation – Jamie – came out to greet us and took us back into the warehouse area. Jamie told us about some of the new contracts they’ve signed which will greatly increase the number of cookies they make. They already produce 145 million cookies a year, so there’ll be hundreds of millions of tasty little cookies floating around the US in the coming years.

After a few minutes, Jamie went back to whatever he does on a daily basis and left us in the capable hands of Chandler.

We were the first tour she’d handled by herself and she did a great job. Chandler led us through the warehouse and back to the bakery and factory area.

Due to the risk of dropped phones, etc. in a food preparation area, we weren’t allowed to take photos while in the bakery area during the Byrd Cookie Company factory tour.

There are some windows looking into the bakery area though, so we were able to get a couple of photos afterwards from outside the no-photo zone. There’s a large machine that’s filled with cookie dough and which then cuts drops of the cookie dough.

The cookie dough then goes through an oven, with several fans on the other side to quickly cool down the cookies.

They were making Benne Wafer cookies the day we visited, so we got to eat them hot (well, cooled) off the press. They’re thin cookies made with benne seeds (aka sesame seeds). I’m not normally a fan of sesame seeds, but they were surprisingly tasty; it probably helps that they add maple and brown sugar.

After the factory tour was over, we were brought through to the gift shop. This wasn’t just any old gift shop though. This was the Byrd’s Cookies gift shop. Which could only mean one thing – all the cookie sampling.

In addition to the flavors we’d tried at their South Carolina store, they had a few extras like Red Velvet and Chocolate Mint.

Our Byrd Cookie Company factory tour came to an end here. We couldn’t leave empty handed though so, in addition to the couple of packs of Scotch Oatmeal cookies they gave us, I bought a U-Pick box of assorted cookies and Shae got a large bag of Jalapeno Cheddar cookies.

Final Thoughts

We had a great time going behind the scenes at Byrd’s Cookies. The tour was worth paying $7 each for; it was interesting learning more about their history, seeing the cookies being made and, best of all, getting to try the freshly baked cookies.

If you visit Savannah, we can highly recommend going on the Byrd Cookie Company factory tour.