My background
I am a former mixologist from Montreal who found his passion in the preparation of cold smoked salmon. Shortly after the pandemic shut down bars, restaurants and many other businesses, I found myself working part-time in construction to make ends meet for my family.
And then it all came together when I started using my smokehouse. Before long, I was spending time on my passion project before and after work.
To my surprise, this project has yielded results beyond a family dinner.
My business
I quickly expanded the outdoor grill space from six to 24 feet. Later, I moved to an indoor facility where I can smoke up to 25 pounds of salmon at a time.
At first, I thought I would only do a maximum of 10 servings of smoked salmon. Now I'm doing hundreds! These portions of smoked salmon are the main product of my new business. Done my way.
I admit it's strange that I'm starting my business with a food product that I didn't like very much before I tried to make it myself. But the chance to do it differently intrigued me. It seemed odd that I didn't like smoked salmon, even though Montreal is a city that likes smoked salmon a lot.
I discovered that the best results come from working slowly. It now takes me five days to prepare the smoked salmon, twice as long as when I started last year.