Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://specialtyfoodmagazine.epubxp.com/i/139333
R AW M I L K FA R M S T E A D CHEESES FROM HOLLAND cheese focus Do you look at sales history to predict future sales? This traditional Boerenkaas or "Raw Milk Farmers Cheese" has a rich sweet cream taste with a hint of Brazil nut and dried apricots after aging for 9 months. TOP 16 SUPER GOLD WINNER Out of 725 winners Buttery with a hint of roasted walnut, this 10 week Baby Swiss encompasses all the distinct characteristics of a fine, young Emmentaler with a complexity beyond its age. Elevating the original, this Boerenkaas has a generous shaving of Italian Black Truffles sprinkled throughout the cheese. After 10 weeks of aging, notes of walnuts emerge and the earthy truffle flavors are fully developed. Introducing: WINTER To celebrate the flavors and smells of Winter, this seasonal Boerenkaas contains a mixture of spices reminiscent of the season. Flavors of sweet cream with an essence of cardamom and nutmeg develop after 4 months. To learn more about Melkbus cheeses, visit us at DairyDial.com SA: It's nice when you finally have history to pull from. By the time you hit three to four years, you can see your trends. We probably start ramping up for the holidays in late September. I look at how much we sold of our Top 10 last year. I'll go to my No. 1 distributor and say, "I know I'm going to sell 500 pounds of this," and I'll try to negotiate a lower price. So we lower our costs and it looks cool to have a stack as big as Whole Foods—but it has to be a cheese that can sit. ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE —Stacey Adams only a day. It's so different per cheese. You have to understand each one of your cheeses. I put my orders together and then give them a second look and say, "Uh, maybe not." What's the essence of smart purchasing? CR: Buy what you can sell. You want to be able to sell cheese at its most pristine, and you don't want it staying around longer than that. I've had to compromise with distributors who only want to sell me case lots. I say, "I know I can't move those 10 pieces in time." For something like Mt. Tam, I've found a distributor who will sell it to me by the piece. I've also split cases with other stores. A few years ago I wanted an 80-pound special Gruyere, and the only way was to buy the whole wheel. I knew it was going to sell well but that I was not going to be able to sell it all. So I got on the phone with two other stores, and I said, "Would you like a quarter of it?" Afterward the distributor said, "Connie, you can't do that. That cheese wasn't supposed to be in every shop." SA: What you can realistically sell is defined by the lifespan of the cheese. You may only have a week to sell Bonne Bouche, or maybe Janet Fletcher is the weekly cheese columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of Cheese & Beer (Andrews McMeel, 2013). KT: We buy by what's happening on the calendar. We're in a tourist town. When we have three-day weekends, we're going to be busier. Be plugged into what happens in your community. Do you track waste? SA: We track everything. We have a clipboard at the cheese-cutting station with a grid. There's a shrink column for cheese that can't be repurposed, another column for sampling and another column for foodservice. We make a cheese blend for quiches and flatbreads. Summer Fancy Food Show Booth 658 66 "What you can realistically sell is defned by the lifespan of the cheese." specialtyfood.com