Benny Curl

When Savannah, Ga. native Benny Curl was in high school, he asked out Kay Byrd. Before their first date, Curl had to help Kay’s father load dozens of cases of cookies into a delivery van. “That was my introduction to the company,” says Curl, 72, speaking of the family-owned Byrd Cookie Company. 

The founder was Kay’s grandfather, Benjamin Tillman Byrd, Sr., known as Pop, who opened a bakery in Savannah in 1924. A one-man operation, he made cookie deliveries to corner grocers in his Model-T Ford. It never crossed his mind that his cookies would now be sold from Harrods to Hong Kong, in Disneyland and handed out on Delta flights. His recipe for Scotch Oatmeal Cookies is the same formula the company uses today.

Curl married Kay Byrd 53 years ago. He hadn’t intended to join the family business, setting up an accounting practice in Atlanta after graduating from the University of Georgia. In the late 1980s, Kay’s father told his son-in-law he wanted to retire and was contemplating selling to a company in New Jersey. Instead, Curl was persuaded to buy it. “Overall, it’s a happy business to be in,” he says. “Most people like cookies.”

The product mix has been constantly changing although some of the stand outs remain. Curl preferred bite-size cookies. He developed a lucrative relationship with Disney, and in 1990 introduced Key Lime Coolers, the first cookie at the Fancy Food Show to win “Dessert of the Year.”

The Curl’s daughter Stephanie Lindley is now the owner and CEO. Under her reign, Byrd retail shops have expanded, with five in Savannah and two in Charleston, S.C. Two of her sons have joined the business. The company recently celebrated its 95th anniversary. Three production lines bake 4,272,000 cookies a day, or about one billion a year.