STANWOOD — Leo Black doesn’t give up easily.
While in the food products industry 20 years ago, he first tasted cheese embedded with bits of smoked salmon. He loved it, but the company that produced the specialty cheese soon succumbed to production problems.
“That’s when I started thinking that someday I’m going to start making it,” Leo Black said.
It wasn’t an empty pledge. Years later, he began experimenting in earnest with salmon cheese recipes. His cheese has spawned a family business headed by this octogenarian and his wife.
Captain Black’s Seafood LLC sells three varieties of its gourmet salmon cheddar cheese — plain, dill and chive. It is sold at Haggen Food and Pharmacy, QFC, wineries and specialty stores. The small company now produces about 2,000 pounds of its cheese a month.
At age 83, Leo Black and his 80-year-old wife, Francine, are the cheese company’s chief promoters, giving out samples in stores.
“People just love the cheese,” said Leo Black, who is the namesake behind “Captain Black.”
That brings him a minor celebrity when he’s giving out samples, his wife said.
“They love it. They shake hands with him all the time,” Francine Black said.
Their son, Wendel Black, and his wife, Kym Black, also are involved in the business. Kym Black directs the company’s marketing efforts and does in-store sampling. She and Wendel Black also handle production details at Captain Black’s small production plant on Camano Island.
The Blacks all have experience in the food industry and business. Leo Black worked as a marketer for Alaska Smokehouse, a distributor of smoked salmon, for more than 20 years. Kym and Wendel met and until recently both worked on factory fishing trawlers. Francine Black is a former real estate agent.
Armed with his goal of creating smoked-salmon cheese, of course, didn’t ensure success. But Leo Black and his family did some homework before jumping into business. As he was creating his cheese recipe, Leo Black went to a cheese maker in Utah to learn more about the craft and sought out other experts. When Leo finally found the right combination of cheese and smoked salmon, he and Wendel traveled to Wisconsin and made a sample batch.
When they tasted the first batch, the response from friends and acquaintances was unanimous.
The Blacks use their Camano Island plant to trim smoked fillets of Alaska coho salmon and package it for shipping to Cedar Grove Cheese, the Wisconsin-based gourmet cheese maker that makes their product. They also label and ship the finished smoked salmon cheese from Camano Island. For deliveries to stores, they use a refrigeration truck they bought on eBay.
Working together as a family has gone well so far. The biggest disagreement so far centered on the product’s name. Wendel Black liked the Captain Black name, but Leo Black argued he shouldn’t use a ranking title he didn’t earn. He often lets people know he’s not really a captain.
The others told him that didn’t matter for the product’s name, just as Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, wasn’t really a colonel.
“It took a lot of convincing,” said Kym Black, who added that the four Blacks have otherwise agreed on most aspects of the business. “We haven’t thrown anything at each other,” she added with a laugh.
Meanwhile, the cheese has gained more fans. At the American Cheese Society’s annual competition this summer, Cedar Grove Cheese entered Captain Black’s and it earned second place in the smoked-cheese category.
Haggen, the Blacks’ first major client, has had success selling 8-ounce packages of the cheese despite its higher-than-average price.
“It has been popular,” said Haggen spokeswoman Becky Skaggs. “It’s just a great product, and it’s local, which we also like.”
The Bellingham-based chain plans to start selling a lower priced 5-ounce package of Captain Black’s cheese as soon as it’s available, Skaggs added.
The Blacks, who said their enterprise broke even in its first year, said getting their new cheese size on the market is a priority. They also are preparing to show off their products at October’s Seattle Food and Wine Experience show. With stores in both Washington and Oregon selling the cheese, the Blacks would like to expand into California as well.
After years of imagining, then experimenting, with smoked salmon cheese, Leo Black said he he’s not surprised with its success so far. After all, he was driven to create it after tasting it all those years ago.
“Oh yes, I wasn’t going to give up until I had it,” he said.
Reporter Eric Fetters: 425-339-3453 or fetters@heraldnet.com.
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