The husband-and-wife team share their story behind the gourmet cookie business’s rapid expansion, which has grown from a small kitchen operation to a production line making 6,000 units a day.
The launch of DoughGirl in 2025 follows the duo’s previous successful enterprise, The Chuckling Cheese Company, which they launched in 2012. While cheese was the main event, the business model had also catered to sweet-toothed Brits, with the team buying baked treats from local bakeries to sell on.
When the demand for commodities such as cookies started to tick up so much so that their suppliers could no longer keep up, the team decided to bring production in-house and set-up a separate arm - hello, DoughGirl.
TikTok has been a big part of the duo’s marketing approach, with the DoughGirl brand seeing viral success on the platform. Alongside tempting pull-apart videos showcasing gooey, decadent cookies, the Colclough’s also see social media as a way of offering transparency to its customers. They do this with behind-the-scenes videos and even live sessions where customers can ask about allergens, ingredients and delivery directly.
Due to demand, DoughGirl has had to scale quickly - and this has entailed significant investment, with the bakery producer quickly moving beyond household mixers to industrial equipment and flow-wrapping systems.
The Colclough’s have outgrown their bakery several times, completing four extensions in 11 months, supported by an already established dispatch operation built through their cheese business. The challenge now is maximising the space they have, while also maintaining its artisan feel.
Reflecting on their journey, the couple highlight agility, problem-solving and gut instinct as essentials. But as Emma puts it, “every day’s a learning curve.”
