Co-founder Sawyer Hemsley was photographed Oct. 6 at Crumbl headquarters in Lindon, Utah. Photographed by Chad Kirkland A crisp Monday morning in Provo, Utah, and inside a nondescript corporate office park, two cheerful Crumbl employees usher a visitor into a surprisingly whimsical world. There are no conveyor belts or chocolate rivers, but the vibe is more than a little Wonka-esque: Giant prop cookies line the hallways, a butter stick the size of a park bench leans against a mixing bowl large enough to bathe in, and a cluster of dessert chefs hustle like Keebler elves inside a glass-walled test kitchen. This is Crumbl HQ - the epicenter of a pink-boxed cookie empire that since 2017 has grown from a single storefront in Logan, Utah, to a $2 billion franchise phenomenon spanning the U.S. and Canada. Fueled by TikTok virality, influencer loyalty and a weekly rotating menu that inspires both cravings and debate, Crumbl's growth trajectory has been unsurpassed in the food industry space, expanding to 1,100 franchises in seven years, faster than it took both McDonald's (13 years) or Starbucks (10). Related Stories Lifestyle L.A.'s Food Scene Is in Crisis. Here's Why. Lifestyle Phil Rosenthal's Happy Place... Comes With Fries Its cookie drops - which occur on Monday mornings across the country - have become as hotly anticipated as new iPhone launches or Sabrina Carpenter's latest surprise single. What began as a local bakeshop concept has morphed into something closer to a dessert-based entertainment behemoth, complete with its own fan base, A-list Hollywood collaborations and even a juicy controversy that unfolded across TikTok and Instagram and rocked the Gen Z gossip-verse. Everything - from the app that pings the cookie drops to the branding strategy that weaponizes nostalgia and novelty - emanates from this Provo facility. It's where the cookie flavors are dreamed up, where rows of copywriters craft indulgent descriptions and where Crumbl's founders, Sawyer Hemsley and Jason McGowan, two Mormon cousins united by faith and sugar, oversee the operations of this high-calorie symbol of American soft power. *** Co-founder Jason McGowan was photographed Oct. 6 at Crumbl HQ. Photographed by Chad Kirkland The idea began, as so many startups do, in a college town. Hemsley was a student at Utah State University in Logan when he and McGowan, his cousin by marriage, opened a storefront cookie shop with a singular twist: one flavor only. It was a warm milk chocolate chip cookie, and for a while, that was the entire menu. The duo divided duties according to their strengths. Hemsley, 33, the more extroverted of the pair, became the public-facing creative force behind recipes, packaging and design. McGowan, 47, more technically minded, focused on scaling operations, overseeing the weekly cookie rollouts, reeling in franchises and cooking up the proprietary technology that would eventually make the whole operation hum. "The tech is the only way we're able to uphold the rotational menu," explains menu vp Amy Eldredge during a headquarters tour. "We create instructional designs and feed those to our franchises, where they re-create them from scratch." Almost immediately, the business took off. What began as one cookie became four, then six, then a whole range, served both warm and cold, in an ever-expanding network of franchises, all minting cookies from the master recipes whipped up here in Provo. The rotating weekly lineup, combined with social media hype and sleek branding, created a cookie version of appointment television: You had to show up each week or miss your chance. That all of this began in Utah may not be entirely coincidental. For one thing, the state has become something of a hotbed of entrepreneurism, thanks to lower costs, a young, highly motivated labor force and local government regulatory initiatives aimed at making Utah "The Startup State." For another, there's the well-known Mormon affection for sugary snacks and "dirty sodas" - concoctions of Coke, flavored cream and other fruit purees available at Swig, a Utah-based drive-thru chain with 141 locations - popularized on such shows as Bravo's The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and Hulu's The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. The religion has a long list of restrictions, from alcohol, cigarettes and drugs to premarital sex and even "hot drinks," i.e. coffee and tea (neither of which is available at Crumbl locations). But sugar is OK and has become a staple of the Utah diet. "There's a sublimation of desire that goes into these cookies that I find really fascinating," says Soleil Ho, the San Francisco Chronicle's James Beard Award-winning restaurant critic. "And it's something I have experienced with friends who are sober. Instead of drinking or doing drugs, you smoke a lot of cigarettes or eat a lot of gummy worms. You have to channel that addictive tendency - and you get something out of sugar. Especially a lot of sugar." Speaking alongside Hemsley from his