CARMEL, Ind. — While the Colts didn't make it to the Super Bowl this season, a Carmel mom scored a big business opportunity inside the stadium on game days.
Katie Maurer is a mother to three girls and since 2014, she's operated Cute as a Button Cookies out of her kitchen.
"I've always loved baking and cooking," said Maurer. "When our youngest was starting kindergarten, I was thinking about ways that I could use my time at home."
With a little encouragement from family and friends who enjoyed her frosted sugar cookies, Maurer opened up shop inside their home kitchen.
"I have two recipes," Maurer said. "I have a sugar cookie recipe and a royal icing recipe, and everything has been decorated by hand."
Maurer simply started posting pictures of her cookie creations on her social media business page, and it took off.
"The sky is the limit for decorating cookies," said Maurer, who now has hundreds of cookie cutter shapes in her collection and uses a projector to help trace custom designs. "It's just been a wonderful opportunity to be able to work out of my home, be present for my kids."
And then a big opportunity knocked on her door — Maurer received interest in her cookies from the people inside the house that Peyton built.
Sodexo Live is the company in charge of food and beverage inside Lucas Oil Stadium for Colts home games and events, and they work to reach out to local vendors when possible.
"We were just trying to find ways to reach out into the community and just bring local vendors and stuff in so we can make a little special touch here at the stadium," said Lauren Fitzmorris, the General Manager for Sodexo Live at Lucas Oil Stadium.
She says they especially look for women and minority-owned businesses to partner with on game days, and Cute as a Button Cookies caught their attention on social media.
"It's a huge undertaking. Just in concessions alone we have over 140 operations we operate," Fitzmorris said. "Any given football day, we have over 1,200 people that we are responsible for who come in and work for us. So it's a huge operation and a lot of planning goes into it."
Maurer brought the people at Sodexo some samples of her cookies and a partnership was born back in 2019.
The pandemic slowed business for a year or two but this season she was back up to speed, creating custom Colts cookies for suites, carts and even visiting VIPs.
"It's just nothing but [a] 100 percent positive exciting experience for me," said Maurer. "I'm so fortunate. It's the best partnership. I can't imagine what my business would've been like without it."
It's also a big business boost. Fitzmorris says Maurer provides them with more than 50 dozen custom Colts cookies each home game.
"You come into the stadium, you are able to get your item out in front of 65,000 people on a game day," said Fitzmorris.
Maurer says she mostly does special orders for private events like birthday parties, showers, graduations, holidays and more.
To learn more about Cute As A Button Cookies you see at Colts games, visit Instagram.
