It was always going to be a light and fluffy story.
But it turns out it is no mean feat cranking out 7000 pavlovas a day, seven days a week, to maintain a more than 70% share of New Zealand's pavlova market.
Over a week, that is 49,000 Christmas-table-bound pavlovas, made from five and a-half tonnes of egg white, and tens of thousands of finished products delivered from one end of the country to the other.
Cowells Genuine Pavlova was started in Dunedin in the early 1970s by Audrey and Ron Cowell.
Franchises later spread around the country before all operations were regrouped back in Dunedin, at an inconspicuous Frederick St kitchen run by Kirsty and Matthew Heaton and fellow director Evelyn Millar.
Mr Heaton estimated ''unofficially'' Cowells had 70%-75% of the New Zealand market, supplying outlets of competing supermarket giants Foodstuffs and Progressive Enterprises, with annual turnover of more than $1million.
''Last Friday, we made as many as were made in all 1980,'' Mr Heaton said.
He said there was no ''secret recipe'' and that it had largely remained unchanged from the 1970s, but had been slightly modified to extend shelf life.
''It's clean equipment, the egg white and as the cookbooks suggest,'' Mr Heaton said.
Of 7000 daily pavs, just 1.5%, or 105, become seconds.
Freshly made Cowell pavlovas have an eight-week life, the supermarkets' requirement being a minimum of more than three weeks left on the use-by date on delivery, Mr Heaton said.
Cowell's begins Christmas preparations in August, as 80% of annual sales are in November and December, with the nine year-round staff numbers bolstered by students. Up to 32 are employed nearer Christmas.
At this time of year there are two daily 10-hour shifts working seven days a week.
However, in the quiet period around June and July, just 7000 pavlovas a month may be made, but cooking staff spend alternate days on packing and orders.
While arranging all South Island distribution, Mr Heaton works closely with Otago company Mainland Poultry, with an agreement for the egg supplier to deliver pavlovas along with its own North Island deliveries.
At different times there have been franchised operations in Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland.
On the question of buying out and closing the Hamilton venture, and not maintaining it for northern orders, Mr Heaton said it was because of the replication of costs in the ovens, health and safety compliance and maintaining quality control.
''Dunedin was made to cope with the Christmas pressure,'' Mr Heaton said, saying capital had been reinvested into Dunedin in ovens and packing and labelling machines.
''We could have gone for [living in] the North Island, but the skifields, ocean and lakes are here,'' Mr Heaton quipped.
He said Mrs Cowell (90) still received monthly updates on the business, which sprang from the couple originally opening Cowell's Coffee Shop in Stuart St in 1963.
Their pavlova fame prompted the opening of a dedicated Bath St kitchen in 1972.
