Founder Brian Whitens has had a journey with a series of businesses — though they could be viewed as different iterations of the same business. He started, perhaps surprisingly, recording video.

Whitens’ original company was Media Productions, Inc., created for the purposes of offering promotional services. For a spell Whitens also produced some works with his brother, Mark, under the name Media Pro Development.

“I did a variety of things,” Whitens said. “I did TV stuff and everything else.”

Whitens said he filmed and produced a fishing show for Mike Mladenik, an angler in Wisconsin. He was also heavily involved with the Woodtick Music Festival in Hermansville. Whitens filmed features in Arizona, California, Colorado and Ontario.

Some of the most popular seasonings from Cooking Wild are shown. (Photo courtesy of Brian Whitens)

“And somehow, I don’t remember exactly what transpired, but somewhere along the way, it made more sense to be 906 Outdoors, because I started doing U.P. stuff and that sort of thing,” Whitens explained. “So Media Productions transformed into 906 Outdoors.”

According to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), the corporation named Media Productions, Inc. changed to 906 Outdoors, Inc. in 2014. Media Productions had filed its original articles of incorporation in 2003.

There wasn’t a shift in purpose, at first — 906 Outdoors continued doing the same promotional work and TV production that Whitens had been involved with for years.

In the 2010s, after Buck LeVasseur had hosted and produced the show “Discovering” for over 30 years, Levasseur stepped back, and Whitens filled in.

Whitens ended up hosting Discovering for about a decade.

Kristin Ojaniemi began contributing to Discovering while Whitens was the host, and before long, she became co-producer. That freed up a little of Whitens’ time, and he began working on his own 906 Outdoors show — he estimates that got going in 2020.

“I started running the 906 Outdoors show on a variety of channels… Did that for a while,” Whitens said.

During the same tine, he and his wife Patti began making seasonings for a sub-brand, Cooking Wild, while the show was still on.

“Between doing all that stuff — Discovering and everything, I just started looking for different stuff, something that was different,” Whitens said. “I don’t last too long in one thing; I get bored, so we ended up in the seasoning business, just as a side thing.”

He said that he enjoys grilling and using a smoker, so he and Patti began concocting seasoning blends that complemented venison and other locally-hunted meat.

“We started doing a variety of seasonings, like for wild game, mainly — which works for everything, but leaning towards the wild game flavor to it,” Whitens said.

In 2022, Ojaniemi became the producer and host of Discovering, and Whitens moved back to being a contributor.

He explained that he didn’t necessarily intentionally leave one gig for the purposes of expanding the other, it just worked out that Cooking Wild, which had previously been a side gig, ended up growing. The products had sold particularly well during COVID, when online shopping exploded.

“When I quit all that other stuff, I kind of went full tilt into the seasoning stuff. And we’ve been doing that since then,” Whitens said.

While he was producing the 906 Outdoors television show, Whitens would meet a lot of local makers of various things and ended up selling their products on his website. Cooking Wild Seasonings also was once just an item available through the online store.

Whitens and his wife began making their cooking products in a room of their house that they converted into a commercial kitchen. When the business outgrew that space, it was time to upgrade.

Now, a building in Hermansville houses all the production and shipping — but not sales — of the Cooking Wild Seasonings products. The larger facility allowed Whitens to purchase bigger and better equipment, too.

Little by little, more and more stores wanted to sell Cooking Wild Seasonings from 906 Outdoors. Elmer’s County Market in Escanaba is a big vendor; other local businesses like Rapid River Knifeworks and Frapp’s Meat Market also sell the products.

Pouch seasonings are very popular; Cooking Wild produces seasonings for making bratwurst, breakfast sausage, cudighi, summer sausage and snack sticks. There are shakers of burger seasonings and rubs — which were also designed with wild game in mind, but Whitens says work wonderfully on domestic meats, too. A flavor called “Grill Burger” is a popular, multi-purpose flavoring with a slightly smokey note. Though “burger” is in the name, it’s great on grilled chicken, Whitens said.

Rubs like the “Maple Bourbon” flavor are designed to work well on ribs and pork butts.

Another popular flavor is “Cherry Chipotle.” Whitens said there’s a restaurant in New York City that orders this seasoning and uses it for a menu item they boast about — cherry chipotle wings.

The fish batters are big sellers, too. One proud statement made about the Cooking Wild fish batter — which comes in two flavors, original and lightly seasoned — is that it stays crispy on a fried fish fillet far longer than most other batters do.

Whitens explained that all the mixes made by Cooking Wild are unique — even the ones named things like “Classic” don’t taste like other generic products people might find.

He and Patti do a lot of experimenting, Whitens said, and everything that ends up making it onto the product list has been tried and approved.

“It’s all recipes that I came up with because I like them. Most of them are kind of unique … they got a little different twist,” he said.

Whitens himself promotes the products at sports shows and events like the U.P. Ice Fishing and Hunting Expo in Escanaba.

“So when somebody tastes it, they’re buying it,” he said with a chuckle. “Like at a sports show. If you have a little sprinkle in your head, taste it, you’re going to buy a bottle now, because it’s just different. It’s unique.”

An expansion larger than the one-store-at-a-time additions he’d been seeing came when Krist, the gas station chain, began carrying Cooking Wild Seasonings in their stores.

Batch sizes vary based on order demand; often between 50 and 400 pounds get mixed up at once. Whitens said he likes to make enough to fill orders, but not so much that stuff will end up sitting on shelves for a while — even though seasonings are extremely long-lived.

A new line of products from Cooking Wild Seasonings will emerge soon. Whitens has developed a series of wing rubs, which he hopes to get into stores in the next month or so.

Whitens also makes custom orders. If someone wants something tailored — for instance, similar flavors to the Classic Burger but extra spicy — he’s happy to accommodate.

To find out more or order online, readers may visit cookingwildseasonings.com.

The owner of 906 Outdoors and Cooking Wild Seasonings can be contacted at Brian@906outdoors.com.