Chocolate, peanut butter, berries – the sweet taste of cookies is hard to resist. But sugary biscuits were not always a taste that Josie and Jozef had in mind.

After losing their jobs during the pandemic, British woman Josie Powell and her Slovak partner Jozef Kozik used social media to build a following as they began to grow their baking business.

They then opened a store in southern France, with viral TikTok content sending cookie sales through the roof.

"People were spending more time on TikTok and it was my partner who had the idea to start posting on TikTok for our cookies – and we saw a massive difference with growing the accounts of TikTok and Instagram," Powell tells CGTN.

"It was a lot more satisfying to watch a video of opening a cookie up, seeing what was inside, all the chocolate, eating it, compared to just a regular picture."

Jojo's Dough has more than 46,000 followers on Instagram - but a community of more than 360,000 on TikTok, which has established itself as one of the world's biggest social networks.

It has more than 150 million monthly active users across Europe, according to company data. The social network is expected to reach 17.5 million users in France alone by 2026.

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But the mass appeal of TikTok can have drawbacks.

"It used to be a lot easier to grow, now it's getting a little bit harder as everyone is using that platform," says Powell. "Same thing for Instagram – when they started their Reels it was a lot easier to grow, now it's slowly going down. But YouTube right now, everyone is saying, is a big hit because of the Shorts."

The growth of the cookie business online and in-store means Jozef and Josie are looking to expand their offering by franchising, or allowing an independent trader to use the JoJo's Dough name in return for a licensing fee.

"It was the only way to go faster, I would say, because it’s very difficult to have to set up shops all around France so [franchising] is going to be much easier," says Kozik. "We can earn more money with franchising than by opening a couple of shops."

France has one of the world's most well-known cuisines – and bread, pastries and patisseries are a large part of that.

This shop has shown that it is possible to cater to the French market.

Creating a dynamic online presence is just as important as creating a best-selling cookie.

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