Unique Concepts Summer 2008

On the Mall Menu: Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet

By Claude Solnick
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In Woody Allen's movie "Sleeper," Miles Munroe comes back to life after being cryogenically frozen for 200 years only to learn everything we thought we knew about diet is wrong. Ice cream and sweets are healthy and the better things taste, the better they are for you. If Miles Munroe woke today and found out about Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet, he couldn't be more surprised. McLean, VA-based Dr. Siegal's Direct Nutritionals has opened seven locations in less than a year: six carts, including its most recent at the Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, AZ and one kiosk in La Galleria, in Fort Lauderdale, FL. The company hopes to open 40 more locations over the next 12 months and to add shakes and soups to its menu. Full-blown stores are in the works. "There's no magic to this," says Matthew Siegal, CEO of Dr. Siegal's Direct Nutritionals and son of the creator of the cookie diet, Dr. Sanford Siegal. "It simply controls your hunger," Matthew Siegal explains. "Eat one of these cookies and you won't be hungry for a while." Sometimes shoppers have "immediate skepticism." Some want to know what "the gimmick" is, while others assume it's the latest fad diet. But this diet is no flash in the pan. Dr. Sanford Siegal, a doctor specializing in weight loss in Miami, where he has his practice, created this cookie diet in 1975. Macmillan published a 308-page book by him based on the diet in 1985. In addition to being sold over the Web (CookieDiet.com) and through the doctor's medical practice, the cookies are sold by other doctors, drugstores, health spas, health food stores and now in malls. Matthew Siegal got the idea of using carts and kiosks strategically to increase the company's visibility and generate revenues in the summer of 2007. "I was walking through a mall near Washington, DC, where I live," Siegal says. "I was looking at all these carts and kiosks and a light bulb went off. 'What if there were a Dr. Siegal cookie kiosk?'"

A few months later, he opened the company's first cart in the Morristown Mall, in Morristown, NJ. The test "went very well," Siegal says. More carts and a kiosk quickly followed as these cookies sold, well... like hot cakes.

And these cookies aren't cheap. Boxes of 42 cookies, or a week's supply, sell for $59. That may sound steep for cookies, but Siegal says the cookies sometimes replace rather than accompany meals. "We prefer to say eat when you're hungry," Siegal says. "And when you're not hungry, don't eat—regardless of the time."

The cookies are meant to taste good, but people expecting the sugar rush of a regular cookie may be disappointed. "Are they delicious? No," Matthew Siegal says. "If they were delicious, you'd eat too many of them."

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