Herwig De Beukelaer followed in his father’s footsteps by carrying on a family tradition: creating crème-filled straw cookies known for a distinct signature swirl that spirals the length of each flaky wafer.

A fourth-generation baker and COO of Pirouline, De Beukelaer said his father decided to settle in Madison, Mississippi, to bake the family's Belgian recipe. Since then, the company has expanded, moving into a bigger facility to accommodate baking about two million cookies a day.

This week, ice skating fans will see the Pirouline brand advertised frequently during the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships in Nashville. The company is partnering with the U.S. Figure Skating Association for the remainder of the 2021-22 professional ice skating season. The cookie brand will have marketing around the event with rink signs and commercials, and sponsor the athlete lounge. 

“We’re extremely excited about it,” De Beaukelaer said.

The company and the dessert's beginnings are both humble and family based – much of which cements the company’s foundation in the present.

The De Beukelaer family made bread in the late 1800s in Belgium before pivoting to biscuits after De Beukelaer's great-grandfather, Eduard, acquired a biscuit making machine from England.  

The company grew and less than a century later, Herwig De Beukelaer’s father, Peter, came to the United States. After searching for two years to find the perfect place to set up his company, Peter decided on the Magnolia state.

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“He met a lot of people and it was somewhat the same people every time he came through Mississippi and they were always so friendly,” De Beukelaer said. “Which everybody always says about the South like, you’ll be walking somewhere, and people will just start talking to you, and he really just loved that atmosphere.”

Peter De Beukelaer opened the first factory in 1984 in a field adjacent to just one other factory in the area in Madison.

Thirty-seven years later, other industrial factories popped up, with 18-wheelers steadily flowing in the same area. The company expanded into a new 100,000 square-foot building that runs seven days a week.

With some 200 workers, 48 of which have been with the company for 10-plus years, it's important to De Beukelaer that with expansion and automation, employees are still kept on.

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“As we continued to grow, we could just move them over, so now most of them either look at quality, look at process, make sure we don’t have any waste,” De Beukelaer said. “I think we’ve been very fortunate; we’ve worked very hard to where we can continue to automate, and we continue to move people to the next step.”

The company has focused on vertical integration, so most of the process of baking, packaging and shipping is done right in the facility. This includes acquiring the best ingredients to bake the cookies, using a 3D printer to make certain parts for machines, and melding tin cans into cylinders then shipping them throughout the U.S. and 33 countries.

De Beukelaer said it's a way to ensure the best quality product for customers. 

The De Beukelaer company also has made strives to lessen its impact on the environment, he added. The company recycles approximately 75-80% of its waste, including cardboard and metal. Cookies which don't meet quality standards become animal feed.

LED lights are installed in 98% of the facility, De Beukelaer said, and about three years ago, a high efficiency roof was installed to reflect sunlight to keep the building cool.

Long gone are the days when Herwig would ride up a gravel road on his bike to his father’s company, one of only two factories surrounded by Mississippi fields.

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Yet, the next generation of De Beukelaer bakers is ready to step up. Herwig De Beukelaer laughed as he recalled his daughter sneaking into his office at age 7, propping her feet on top of her father’s desk.

When she saw De Beukelaer turn the corner into the office, without skipping a beat as though she already was running the business, she called out, “Bring me some cookies.”

“I think she’s already ready to join the family business with me,” De Beukelaer chuckled.

Stephanie Caisse, marketing specialist for Pirouline, said the idea for the ice skating partnership manifested when the company determined its target demographic is similar to ice skating audiences.

“When I came on board, I’m their target audience,” Caisse said. “And I was sitting at home and watching ice skating and thought, ‘Wow, Pirouline would look good on a rink board.’”

Caisse reached out through the U.S. Figure Skating Association’s marketing company and, after a few interviews, the organization took them on as a sponsor, Caisse said.

Have a news tip? Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at gszymanowska@gannett.com, on Twitter or at 601-215-4292.