Kootenay Retailer Contributes to International Success Story
By Contributor
Way back in September of 2003, a quiet and unassuming woman approached a series of retailers in the Kootenays with products for sale. She stopped at the Kootenay Co-op Specialty store in Nelson and they ordered her gourmet smoked salmon. This was repeated again in Crescent Valley at Evergreen Natural Foods and then at Ferraro Foods in Rossland and in Trail.
Seven years later, Ellen Melcosky, CEO of Little Miss Chief Gourmet Products Inc., still visits these same stores and still personally delivers her gourmet smoked salmon.
What many people may not know is that this quiet, unassuming creator of the best smoked salmon to come out of Canada is the recipient of local, provincial and national recognition of a magnitude normally reserved for much larger and more established companies.
Some of her awards include: Small Business of the Year from the Canadian Aboriginal Minority Suppliers in October 2008. In March of 2009, she was recognized for Outstanding Business Achievement at the BC Aboriginal Business Awards. Her local Chamber of Commerce gave her the Home Based Business Excellence Award for 2009 and in November of 2009 she was informed at a special ceremony in the House of Commons in Ottawa that she was the recipient of the 2010 National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Business and Commerce. On March 26, the awards were held in Regina, Saskatchewan and will be televised on May 1, on Global National T.V. and APTN channels at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard time.
After all the recognition and the provincial, national and overseas success, Melcosky hasn’t changed. She still operates out of an office in her home, (the product is created elsewhere) and she still loves to travel with her husband to visit her customers and hand deliver their orders. She laughs when she recalls how she was when she first started her company. “I used to be such a shy person and never thought I’d be able to speak to people like I do now.”
As for her success, Melcosky downplays her role in achieving her dream.
“I know I never could have done this without my husband of 44 years always believing in my dream, encouraging me and supporting me 100 per cent. Then there are my customers who are such wonderful people. They believed in me and my products from the very beginning. I love travelling up to the Kootenays and visiting with them. It’s like visiting old friends.”
Over the past 15 years, Melcosky has sold to hundreds of thousands of consumers worldwide who have come to know and love her gourmet smoked salmon made from her own secret recipe.
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