MT. WALDEN'S LITTLE FISH TRIES TO SURVIVE IN A SLIGHTLY LARGER POND (2024)

Like Primo, the chef in the movie "Big Night" whose devotion to authentic Italian food superseded all else, Richard Pla and A. Kyle Strohmann were passionate about smoking fish. But like Paradise, the restaurant in the movie, the Farm at Mt. Walden was inherently unprofitable. Eventually, John Good, a venture capitalist who had heavily financed the company, purchased and reorganized it under the name Walden Foods -- and then fired the founders.

If our first look at Mt. Walden was a classic tale of the way small businesses get launched and then bought out, this story is about growing pains, about what happens when a very small fish in a very big pond wants to make more of a splash.

As Alexander Burnett, vice president and general manager of Walden Foods, put it, "We went from one extreme to another."

Pla and Strohmann went in another direction, too. After declaring personal bankruptcy, the two moved to Gainesville, Fla., where Pla is now selling real estate. Strohmann, who says he is working on a novel about "the unrecognized effects of Native Americans on the Southern soul," reports that the two are "fat and happy."

Burnett and Good, on the other hand, can best be characterized as "comfortable," according to Burnett. But fat and happy -- definitely not. Walden Foods has not yet turned a profit, and Good does not anticipate that the company will break even until sometime next year.

"I think our initial projection was too optimistic," he says in retrospect. "It's that build-a-better-mousetrap" phenomenon, he added. "But people have to know you have one. Getting the word out has been more costly than anticipated."

While Good says he "fixed the major problem, and that was getting them {Pla and Strohmann} out of here," there have been new hurdles. A high overhead, for one.

The 1954 renovated gas station in The Plains where the signature products were originally smoked is now deserted. That facility, albeit quaint, was far too small and had more structural problems than it was worth, says Burnett.

That's why Good embarked on a new factory, a $2 million facility that has kept overhead high -- at least so far. The factory, opened in April in Front Royal, Va., is in a brand new building, an antiseptic facility with lots of chrome and fluorescent lights. In a wide-open space hard by the Blue Ridge Mountains, across the street from a plant that makes office paper products and up the road from a DuPont factory that manufactures car finishes, it's a far cry from a converted garage in The Plains.

Understandably, the move had its share of headaches, says Burnett. It's one thing to be prepared on paper, another to actually use new smokers, install telephones that work and hope that delivery trucks won't get lost. And "it would have been much easier if we had been in the business of making nails or coat hangers," says Burnett. "When you're dealing with a perishable product, timing is everything."

And when it comes to smoking fish, there are many variables, all of which can affect taste, texture and smokiness. Unlike making nails or coat hangers, smoking fish is an art, not a formula.

For one, every smoker "has its own personality," says Burnett. While the original smoker was moved from The Plains, two new $30,000 smokers were purchased. On the outside, they have shiny silver doors. On the inside, they have temperamental heat spots.

And the fire, housed in a concrete box in the back of a smoker, "has a mind of its own," Burnett explains. That's why building a proper fire, and keeping a constant watch on it, are crucial. The diameter and position of the wood, the location of the fire (not too close to the door, not too close to the back) all affect the intensity of the smoke, which affects the gradation of the heat, which affects the moisture of the final product. Then there's the condition of the applewood, the fat content of the fish, the barometric pressure, the humidity in the air, and so on.

But paramount to Burnett was that the signature taste of the Farm at Mt. Walden products remain the same. "We didn't want the public to know we were in a big plant," says Burnett. "We built the plant to increase volume and efficiency."

And that apparently has occurred. With just a few more employees, Walden Foods can produce about twice as much fish in the same amount of time as before. And the brining process -- which used to take 24 hours -- has been reduced to between one and two hours. A higher concentration of salt combined with a shorter soaking time are the reasons.

Still, at the beginning, taste consistency was a problem. "We had a lot of late-night smoking sessions," Burnett admits.

Matthew Lake, chef at New Heights restaurant, who has long used the company's fish (currently in a grilled beet and smoked trout salad), agrees that after the move to the new factory, he detected a "subtle change" in the taste of the product. "It was nothing the customer would recognize, but I think it was softer than before," Lake says.

While Lake, who describes the company as a "class-act operation," believes the smoked trout has "gotten right back on track," an informal tasting by the Food section found the product to taste slightly different even now. It seemed more moist to us, and Lake agreed. It also seemed somewhat less smoky, although Lake and Burnett both disagreed with that assessment.

Bigger, more obvious changes have been made in the distribution and marketing of the products. In the days of Pla and Strohmann, the Farm at Mt. Walden had one primary distributor. Now there are five.

Among the areas of contention with the two founders were strategies for marketing. Now, Walden Foods is trying to be more active and communicative. Instead of waiting for the phone to ring, Burnett spends a lot of time calling retail customers, sending samples to prospective clients, writing thank-you notes.

"There's a lot of noise out there," says Good. "We need to do things to rise above it."

Another major change has been in the product line, which originally numbered four: smoked rainbow trout, packaged in the distinctive paper sleeve; a hot-smoked Atlantic salmon, which, like the smoked trout, was named best product in its category at the prestigious International Fancy Food and Confectionery Show in 1992 (the trout won in 1991), and smoked trout and smoked salmon mousses.

In less than six months, the line has expanded to 15 items, including some new packaging for those existing products. The biggest introduction has been applewood-smoked chicken breasts and Cornish hens. Walden Foods has also experimented with smoked turkeys, although they're not on the company's permanent list.

There has been talk of expanding into the export market, getting a kosher seal and more. All these fronts are fueled by Good's philosophy that it's better not to put all his eggs in one basket. The one-path approach, he says, "runs too high a risk."

Despite his early overly optimistic projections, Good believes the company is "on a realistic track." In the specialty food business, Good says he has learned, the companies that stick to it "ultimately prevail. The ones that flame out early are unrealistic, and didn't get realistic. I think we got religion now."

Once again, stay tuned. CAPTION: A rack of Coho salmon goes into one of the smokers at Walden Foods' new Front Royal processing plant. CAPTION: Alexander Burnett, vice president and general manager of Walden Foods, hoists a 5-pound farm-raised Atlantic smoked salmon.