Fort Collins – After more than a decade in business, artisan cheese producer MouCo Cheese is becoming a full-blown player in the growing market for select gourmet products.

MouCo’s sales nearly doubled in 2011 to $486,000 after co-owners Robert Poland and Birgit Halbreiter ramped up distribution nationwide. That was good enough to put MouCo in the top spot on this year’s Mercury 100 among companies with revenues of $1.39 million or less.

MouCo specializes in soft, ripened cheeses, including brie, camembert and trufello, a camembert with black and white truffles in it.

The couple started the company in 1999, after Poland and Halbreiter left New Belgium Brewing Co. in Fort Collins, makers of Fat Tire and other beers, and moved into producing cheese, a realm where they felt there was more potential for a startup.

Reflecting the realities of a smaller business, Poland credits the company’s sales growth over the past year in part to the fact that their youngest child started school. That gave Halbreiter more time to devote to marketing. The couple also hired another employee to help with sales.

“We’re doing more product demos, especially with breweries, and