The production line at W. T. Hawkin’s Cheezies plant shut down for a day with the news that the man who invented the quintessential Canadian snack had died.

James E. Marker died at his home in Belleville, Ont., at the age of 90 on Tuesday.

“We’re still fighting over what we’re going to do,” to honour Marker, company director of finance Tony McGarvey told the Star on Thursday.

“Jim was a very private person. His love was Cheezies and the airport.”

Marker established the Belleville Airport in 1961 and flew his own Apache plane from there for many years.

Still vice-president of the company he and W.T. Hawkins started in 1949, Marker had paid a surprise inspection visit to the Belleville plant in March, McGarvey said.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Marker had been a farmer when Hawkins became intrigued with the machine Marker invented to process cornmeal.

That original Marker-designed machine, which spits out no two Cheezies alike, is still on the factory floor, McGarvey said.

And the recipe? That’s a company secret only a handful of Hawkins’ employees know.

“It’s real cheese. I won’t go any farther than that,” said McGarvey, who eats the neon orange snack food just about every day.

Cheezies is the company’s sole product after W.T. Hawkins dumped his other snack foods and sent Marker north to concentrate on fried cheese-coated cornmeal bits.

Hawkins’ grandson, Kent, runs the company now, which employes nearly 100 people in its busy spring and summer season.