THERE'S nothing half-baked about Ricci's Bikkies, writes SARAH HUDSON

Enter Ricci McAuliffe's Healesville biscuit shop and the first thing you notice is the buzz of busyness.

Her husband, Ross, scurries out the door, his arms piled high with boxes of orders.

Staff bake in the rear of the shop, mixing and moulding and packing.

Ricci herself sits by the computer, multi-tasking between staff, husband and customers.

"Ross got up at three this morning so he could do deliveries and baking," says Ricci, a mother of three young girls.

"We do work really hard. At times we work non-stop, six days a week.

"It's not always easy but I couldn't do it without him and he couldn't do it without me."

In the space of a few years the couple have turned a cottage biscuit industry - Ricci's Bikkies, started at home by Ricci - into a thriving business, so successful it was recently approached by Coles to sell its goods.

"Even from the start it was busy, we supplied about 30 outlets. Now we supply about 300 across Australia, in every state except South Australia and the Northern Territory," she says.

While the business is named after Ricci, it is definitely a double-act.

The duo work out of a humble shop in Healesville's main street - located opposite the towering facades of the Innocent Bystander winery and White Rabbit brewery - with the space as much a shop front as a factory floor.

Each week they produce up to 5000 packets of hand-made, hand-packed biscuits that are preservative free and use locally grown nuts, berries and eggs, when available.

Sweet varieties include sticky date and ginger, bittersweet chocolate and orange praline or white chocolate and macadamia.

Their range of Turkish breads span savoury and sweet, from cinnamon and sugar or olive oil and sea salt; and there are savoury biscuits such as parmesan sables.

Going beyond the catchy Ricci's Bikkies product, they also stock a new line of muesli, roasted salad nuts and sauces.

Their steak sauce can be used to "jazz up gravy or splash over a salad", while Ricci's Dipping Sauce is Asian inspired with a hint of lime juice, fish sauce, lemon grass, coriander and chilli.

Where others in the trade may have failed, Ricci and Ross have prospered, which, it seems, is due to their nose for the industry.

"We both left school early - I've worked in the industry since I was 16, but always in management. I am a cook, but never trained as a chef," Ricci says.

She first established herself in the industry as manager of South Yarra's Smokehouse and later created Sam's Boat Shed in Williamstown.

It was in Williamstown that she met and hired Ross as a chef.

Tired of the Melbourne mania, 12 years ago they moved to Healesville, where Ross became head chef at the town's eponymous hotel.

"It was when my youngest was (aged) one that I felt a desire to do something and so I started making biscuits from home and installed a commercial kitchen," Ricci says.

Her first biscuit was a yo-yo, from an old family recipe.

When orders started cluttering the family home and blocking the hall, the business moved into the current shop in 2005, and the couple started working together.

"The only ever hiccup for us in the business has been space. Ross now has to deliver a few times a week just to give us space," Ricci says.

"We will need to grow bigger soon. But a lot of small businesses go broke because they go too big too soon.

"For us, the growth has been gradual. We often have to pinch ourselves because we love what we do."

  • CHECKLIST
  • Ricci's Bikkies, 2/281 Maroondah Hwy, Healesville, www.riccisbikkies.com/ or ph: (03) 5962 1294.