The red hot chili papa – Papaco Enterprises

Bruce Arndt, who owns Papaco Enterprises, worked for two years to develop a Cajun seasoning that enables cooks to control its intensity.

By Megan Cooley The Spokane Journal of Business

“Poor papa,” Bruce Arndt’s family used to lament while standing around him in their home kitchen.

The Spokane Valley businessman obsessed for two years over perfecting his recipe for Cajun seasoning—something he was inspired to do after eating in a New Orleans-style restaurant in Seattle’s Pioneer Square in the early 1990s. His repeated attempts to develop a mix, one that tasted good, stuck to the food that it flavored, and enabled the cook to control its intensity by using either more or less, failed. His daughter, Jennifer Merchant, and his wife, Gloria, would shake their heads at Arndt, who only wanted to make the seasoning to flavor his own cooking for family and friends.

“It was like I was a chemist,” he says. “I would take out my notes and try something different. I was making a lot of bad meals, but one day I was in my kitchen, and I said, ‘I got it!’”

Arndt’s family members, whom he calls his toughest critics, agreed, and once others tasted the mix and liked it, too, Arndt was encouraged to sell his product instead of hoarding it at home. It took 10 years for Arndt to follow through with that plan, but today he produces the seasoning, which he calls Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix, through Papaco Enterprises, a company he founded in early 2002. Poor Papa’s is sold in supermarkets throughout the Inland Northwest and on eBay and other Internet storefronts.

Within its first year of business, Papaco Enterprises began turning a profit, Arndt says, although he declines to say what its sales were. The tiny company appears poised to grow. Arndt is developing two other seasonings, an Italian mix and a “burn-your-lips hot” Cajun mix, and expects to have those available for sale by the end of next year, he says.

“The future looks really good,” Arndt says. “There’s no stopping us now.”

Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix, which is wheat- and MSG-free, is sold in one-pound bags. Its ingredients are all-natural and include corn meal, paprika, salt, and other spices.

“The spices part, that’s my secret,” Arndt says with a wink.

His biggest challenge while developing the recipe was getting it to cling to the chicken, meat, fish, and other foods it seasoned. Arndt finally reduced one key ingredient—which he declines to identify—by 50 percent, and almost like magic, the mix stuck, he says.

Arndt also wanted cooks to be able to control the spiciness of their food by increasing or reducing the amount of seasoning they used, because he thinks there’s a misconception about how Cajun food should taste. With some Cajun mixes, even a small amount of seasoning will set your mouth ablaze, he says. His first product, though, is much milder than that, unless a tremendous amount of the product is used, he says.

Before stumbling upon the restaurant in Pioneer Square, Arndt had avoided Cajun food because he thought it was super hot, and he was used to tamer meals.

“I grew up in Cashmere, Wash., and if you didn’t eat apples, you didn’t eat anything,” he says.

He didn’t want others to miss out on Cajun cooking, as he had, because they feared fiery foods, Arndt says.

The jolly Arndt, who talks about his business with the energy most people reserve for Disneyland vacations, says the road to Papaco Enterprises was peppered with stumbling blocks. Encouragement and kindness from people along the way helped make Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix viable, he says.

For 20 years, Arndt owned Arndt’s Jewelry, a business that sold jewelry at trade shows in Spokane and at a store in Wenatchee, where the family lived for three years in the 1990s. When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. opened an outlet there, Arndt was forced to close his store, and in 1996 he moved back to Spokane so he and his wife could be near her relatives.

In 1999, Arndt was in his kitchen when a sharp pain shot through his back. He suddenly wasn’t able to walk—and learned he had three herniated discs.

“At that point, I figured it was all over with,” he says. “I couldn’t do what I used to do. I called the Social Security office about disability.”

Arndt was depressed. A pile of paperwork the government requires potential recipients to fill out to receive disability payments haunted him. His daughter remembered that years earlier, after he’d perfected his Cajun-seasoning recipe, her dad had contacted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about opening a food-processing plant. The paperwork required for that project was just as intimidating, but completing it would result in a much more fulfilling future, she told him.

“I said, ‘You’re right!’ and I crumpled up the paperwork” for disability pay, Arndt says.

Arndt’s back problems improved, and he began planning his manufacturing operation, which now is in an about 300-square-foot space in the Pines Business Center, at 1014 N. Pines. FDA and Spokane Regional Health District employees and his landlord were instrumental in getting the business off the ground, Arndt says, and he began manufacturing the mix in June of 2002.

“I had so many people helping me, such nice people,” he says. “It all fell into place.”

A month later, Arndt’s doctor told him he had diabetes.

“I had so many positive things going,” he says. “I wasn’t going to let this thing get me down.”

Through diet, Arndt controlled his blood sugar and returned his focus to Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix last fall. He pitched his product to supermarkets here, launched a Web site, and has watched sales grow since then.

The first grocery store to sell Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix was the Yoke’s Washington Foods Inc. store at 15111 E. Sprague in Spokane Valley. Arndt remembers setting up his first display of the mix, slowly walking away from it, then sneaking around the end of the aisle to take another look.

“There it was!” Arndt says with eyes as wide as those of a young boy who has just spotted Santa Claus in his living room. “I called my daughter on my cell phone to tell her, ‘My product is on the shelf of a grocery store.’”

Now, Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix is available in lots of supermarkets here, including those operated by Yoke’s; Rosauers Supermarkets Inc. and its subsidiary, Huckleberry’s Fresh Market; Barney’s Soopermarket Inc., which does business as Barney’s Excell; Albertson’s Inc.; Stein’s IGA; URM Cash & Carry; and Manito Super 1 Foods Inc. Its retail price varies from $3.69 to $4.49 per one-pound bag depending on markup, Arndt says.

Gloria Arndt keeps the books for the business, and Bruce Arndt does everything else—from mixing the ingredients to printing packaging labels to shipping orders. He also does cooking demonstrations in supermarkets and at exhibitions. The couple is able to handle the production level now—Arndt can fill 100 bags an hour by himself—but may have to hire people in the future if the business continues to grow.

Arndt sells about 1,000 pounds of Poor Papa Cajun Mix a month now, but declines to project what Papaco Enterprises’ production level or sales will be in the future. He hopes to expand his operation in the Pines Business Center.

“I hope and pray that I don’t get real tired and that my health stays good,” Arndt says. Eventually, the business will go to Jennifer, who is 29, he says.

Until then, Bruce Arndt will continue mixing his secret recipe for Poor Papa’s Cajun Mix, a name that didn’t come directly from his family’s kitchen conversations. The name jumped into Arndt’s mind. A Los Angeles-based food broker was reading aloud the directions on the label for using the mix, which Arndt originally had called Papa’s Cajun Mix.

“‘Pour Papa’s into a dish,‘” Arndt recalls the man reading. “‘Pour Papa’s?’ I said. ‘Poor Papa! That’s me!’”

http://spokanejournal.com/index.php?id=article⊂=1750&keyword=chili