Wally Blume has great taste.

 

It's a job requirement ... he owns Denali Flavors Inc., an up-and-coming confectionery powerhouse responsible for the widely popular Moose Tracks ice cream. Since 1991, Denali has introduced more than 30 flavors to the national market, generating $40 million in annual sales along the way.

 

An outspoken Christian, Blume is a big believer in the concept of keeping Christ at the center of his business and giving back to God not only via tithing, but also through gifts and offerings as well. It is through giving, he says, that God blesses in abundance.

 

Born in 1938, Blume grew up in the inner city of Indianapolis. After graduating from Purdue University in 1962, Blume went to work for Kroger, where he spent 15 years specializing in the sales and marketing of their dairy line, developing new products, packaging and marketing concepts.

 

After leaving Kroger, Bloom began working as a sales rep for an ice cream ingredient company supplying the variegates (i.e. chocolate, caramel, and so on, used in ice cream "ripples") and condiments (i.e. chunks of fudge, cookies or candy found in ice cream) to local dairies, enabling them to transform plain-Jane vanilla and chocolate ice cream into specialty flavors.

 

Eventually, however, that ingredient company was bought by a larger company and the quality of their products began to suffer. Sensing a wide-open business opportunity, Blume decided to put his double-decade knowledge of the ice-cream manufacturing industry to the test and market his own flavor concepts.

 

Named in honor of Michigan's re-introduction of moose into their northern peninsula, Moose Tracks' creamy blend of little peanut butter cups and swirls of thick fudge added into vanilla ice cream was an immediate smash hit.

 

"It was selling about equal to vanilla," Blume says. "If you know anything about the ice cream business, that's the gold standard ... vanilla outsells everything else normally."

Since then the popular flavor, along with the other 34 Alaskan-themed Denali ice cream varieties--including such temptations as Bear Claw (dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate-coated cashews and caramel swirls) and Rowdy Reindeer (amaretto ice cream with fudge and cherry cups)--has expanded to upward of 90 dairies across the nation.

 

Denali's marketing plan is inventive: They develop concepts--names, logos and formulas--and then sell those concepts to ice-cream manufacturers around the United States under a licensing agreement. "When we sell a concept to a plant they agree to use our logos, our names, our formulas and our ingredients," Blume explains. "Also, we have told our clients that we will not sell our product line to the national brand ice-cream companies, that way we enable smaller dairies to compete against the national brands."

 

Denali's Web site (moosetracks.com) spells out the company mission: "To provide our licensed partners with mutually beneficial marketing programs while maintaining Christ-centered values, ethical integrity, business excellence and profitability." Blume, who dedicated his life to the Lord in 1975, says he and his wife are believers in blessing God with gifts and offerings.

 

"We've always given," Blume says, "but we didn't really catch the vision of gifts and offerings until later in our walk. Our business actually exploded after we got into giving gifts and offerings. ... The tithe is what you owe, that's an obligation. But in our opinion, gifts and offerings are what really trigger prosperity. I'm not saying you should give just to get something in return. You give in obedience ... that's the key."

 

The list of charities and missions supported by the Blumes is both varied and lengthy. Orphanages in Latvia, street ministries and prison programs in Russia, pastors in India and Brazil, as well as pregnancy resource centers and outreach programs for the homeless in their home state of Michigan, are just some of the recipients of their financial aid.

 

Says Blume, "We think it's imperative that small business owners across this country catch the vision of giving and supporting the gospel."

 

By Jarrod Gollihare, a freelance writer and photographer from Broken Arrow, Okla.