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Cheese Focus: Peddling Cheese

Unconventional venues and selling models are helping cheese entrepreneurs get their foot in the door with minimal investment.

A brick-and-mortar shop may be what many cheese-loving entrepreneurs aspire to own, but it’s not for everyone. In recent years, a few creative would-be retailers have found new ways to sell. They are bringing specialty cheese to alternative venues where it doesn’t normally go and developing retail models that don’t require a huge upfront investment. Their experiences may inspire others to think about peddling cheese beyond the four walls of a traditional shop.

“The hardest part of retail is getting people in your store,” says Mike Eastwood, who, with his wife, Jenny, launched a farmers market-focused cheese business three years ago. “We are bringing our products to where the people are.”

Smallgoods, their novel enterprise, offers a collection of cut-and-wrapped cheeses at five San Diego-area farmers markets year-round. One of these markets, San Diego’s largest, occupies six streets and may see 15,000 shoppers on a good day.

Working out of a rented commercial kitchen where they store their inventory, the Eastwoods bring only four to six cheeses—all small-production and domestic—and a similar number of cured meats to each market. “At first we went out with guns loaded,” says Mike.

“We would have seven to nine cheeses and the same amount of charcuterie and shoppers would look like deer in the headlights. With too many items, there’s the paralysis of decision.”

They bring no condiments, crackers, or other cheese accompaniments, preferring to leave those sales to other market vendors. “If we put those things out, we’d have to sample them, too, and there are only two of us,” says Jenny. 

Adapting to Clientele

Some locations draw well-traveled shoppers who appreciate rare finds and stinky cheeses; other markets lure more tourists and call for more approachable, crowd-pleasing selections. Understanding and adapting to each market’s personality has helped sales grow, says Jenny, whose background includes a stint at Murray’s in New York City.

“We don’t have four walls, but we look at ourselves as a retail shop,” she says. “Presentation is important.” All the cheeses are hand-wrapped and labeled with descriptions and pairing notes. Samples are dispensed from slate trays that rest on ice. The Eastwoods buy about one-third of their inventory from distributors and the rest direct from small creameries such as Moonside Creamery in California, Rockhill Creamery in Utah, and Vermont’s Blue Ledge Farm. An active Instagram account and a weekly email newsletter keep customers informed. Catering helps to supplement Smallgoods’ farmers market sales, which range from 60 to 100 pounds of cheese a week.

San Diego County alone hosts about 30 markets a week, providing potential venues for growth. “That’s the beauty of this business model,” says Mike. “We find the markets that we think our products will do well in, but if they don’t, we move to another one. You can’t pick up a store and move it.”

Cheese Wheels

Laura Conrow’s Wedge on Wheels is also eminently moveable, a mobile cheese shop inspired by vendors at farmers markets in France and Italy. For five years, Conrow operated a brick-and-mortar cheese shop in Reno, Nevada, shuttering it a couple of years ago in the face of a rent increase and other challenges. Her new enterprise, launched in June 2018, is a customized 16-foot trailer with two 6-foot windows that she hauls to farmers markets and weekly food-truck events. Conrow outfitted the trailer with counters, a 6-foot deli case, a slicer, and other equipment from her former shop and opened with an investment of less than $50,000.

“I carry the same things I had in the shop but about half the selection,” Conrow says. Typically, customers can choose from 40 different cheeses and 15 charcuterie items, all cut to order, plus a small range of olives, crackers, honey, nuts, jams, and other condiments. A small menu of composed cheese-and-charcuterie plates satisfies people who want to eat on the spot, and flyers remind shoppers that Conrow does catering and cheese platters. 

Alas, Reno’s farmers markets and outdoor events are not year-round and Conrow has to grapple with generating income in the fall and winter. Catering and classes, she hopes, will keep her business in front of people during the off-season. But the busy summer season provided proof of concept.

“I’m quite surprised at the way people have taken so naturally to the truck,” says Conrow. “They’ve never seen anything like it, but they walk up and get it right away.” The average sale is $15 to $20 per person, comparable to what it was in her former shop. She has extra storage space in a warehouse and refrigeration in a friend’s commercial kitchen.

Seattle-based Roving Cheese Shop, owned by Alison Leber (above), has even less infrastructure. Essentially a pop-up cheese shop with regular gigs at a winery, a kitchenware shop, a specialty food store, a wine shop, and other locations, Leber’s enterprise benefits from her prior experience in cheese retailing—initially with her own Seattle shop and later with Beecher’s Cheese. 

Enhanced Accessibility

“I’m bringing cheese to areas where they don’t have access to a cheese shop,” says Leber, whose clients are all within an hour’s drive of Seattle. Some are too remote for distributor deliveries or can’t meet a distributor’s minimum order. For the wine shop, she drops off five selections every month, with portions precut, wrapped, and priced. All are hard cheeses that won’t suffer if they aren’t sold immediately. She discounts the retail price to the shop by 20 percent and pockets the difference.

Once a month, she stages a pop-up at each client’s location, bringing in 18 to 25 different cheeses and hand selling them. “I’ll sell $350 to $500 of cheese in two hours,” says Leber. She keeps her inventory at a friend’s restaurant and orders both from distributors and directly from creameries.

“I’m not looking to grow,” says Leber. “It’s a bit of a marketing tool for classes and consulting.” Even so, she considers the return good for the time invested and says she could easily add venues and hire cheesemongers to man them. Apart from inventory, her investment was minimal: some soft-sided catering transport bags and a collapsible hand truck.

Leber acknowledges that her efforts pencil out because the venue owners are friends who charge her nothing. In return, they get more traffic, more merchandise sales, and occasional publicity. Clearly the Roving Cheese Shop and other alternative cheese-retailing models are creating wins all around.


Janet Fletcher writes the email newsletter “Planet Cheese” and is the author of Cheese & Wine and Cheese & Beer.



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Cheese Focus: Peddling Cheese Cheese Focus: Peddling Cheese Reviewed by Unknown on January 04, 2019 Rating: 5

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