Local entrepreneur strikes black gold in Stoneham
By Christina Torode
Stoneham Independent, April 20, 1995
Glenn Cormier has struck black gold in Stoneham.
No, we are not talking about the kind that hillbilly television star Jedd Clampett happened upon on his farm land, but a line of saute and cooking sauces Cormier has created called "Black Gold."
It was during his culinary career as corporate chef for Legal Seafoods and executive chef for Marco Solo in Newton that Cormier began developing what he calls "crisis sauce," a high concentrated line of garlic marinades needed in fast-paced restaurants for the quick dash of flavor.
 The patrons of these restaurants had nothing but praise for the sauces, but Cormier didn't realize he had a hit on his hands until people began knocking on the door of his Pleasant Street address with empty containers saying 'We need more sauce.'"
"I'm hoping that the line of the Beverly Hillbillies song, 'The next thing you know Jedd was a millionaire' holds true for me," says Cormier, who received his Culinary Arts degree from Newbury College in Brookline.
For now, however, Cormier has a one-man production line called Cormier's Kitchen in Woburn that becomes a family-run business when wife, Nancy, and daughters Meghan and Hannah come by to help him bottle and package the sauces.
Cormier claims that is wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to start his own business.
"I was lucky because (his friend) Chris Nessen was already packaging his homemade marinated mushrooms here," says Cormier, who this week is attending the two-day Boston Food Show. "He set me up with a place to make the sauces and hooked me up with his connections."
The fat, oil, and cholesterol-free sauces are now being sold in meat markets, farm stands, butcheries, and is used by the chefs at the Century House restaurant in Peabody. He recently signed on with Gloucester Seafoods in Stoneham to sell and cook with his product.
"It's a start," says Cormier who admits that he wasn't born a salesman. "I'm a chef first and foremost. What's happened so far happened mostly through word of mouth."
Wagging tongues caught the attention of Ralph Babcock from the Agar Meat Distribution Company.
"It's funny how things happen," says Cormier. "The owner of the Watchmaker (in Stoneham) told me he gave some of my sauces to Mr. Babcock, and now he's seriously interested in carrying my line."
From the sound of it, it may not be long before the boy who once worked along side of his father in the family catering business, sees his own line of products on supermarket shelves.
"I'd like to expand into different areas," says Cormier, who is now working on a pineapple/jalapeno salsa. But his short term goal is to make his sauces available to Boston area residents.
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