Ok dudes I need some help. I'm taking over at a deli/restaurant and I need some help.
We have a pretty nice cheese island that needs to be reorganized. We have a pretty good selection of Italian, French, Spanish, and domestic cheeses, but I'm thinking of organizing them by flavor profiles. If someone comes in looking for P'tit Basque and we are sold out, I'd like the girls on the floor to know they could suggest another cheese in that little section as a nice substitution.
Customer-Do you have any of that orange cheese? Staff-oh lets take a look, yes right here under the "o" and before the "y" (yellow cheese)
Jordan Fisher
I thought about that, but I have no faith that people would even know what they are looking for.
I was thinking along the lines of sections "Sharp", "Earthy", ""Nutty", "Fruity" etc.
Bentley Myers
That's a neat idea but you might end up shooting yourself in the foot that way.
If you make it TOO easy to understand, somebody will just come in and go
>hey just give me the cheapest thing you got that's nutty
Jace Green
For the most part our guests aren't really all that cheap. We are a specialty market so most people come in looking for something for a specific cause or special occasion. We do a lot of wine and cheese pairings.
Leo Wright
By region mainly as mostly people don't shop for cheeses by specific names. For your counter girls set it up by region in order of type (so Italian set up hard, semi-firm, soft French-hard, semi-firm, soft and so on) or by type (all Cheddar's together, All blues, all Monterey Jack's) grouping regional ones together in clusters
Christian Lewis
>I'd like the girls on the floor to know they could suggest another cheese in that little section as a nice substitution.
Why don't you just hire a man so you know you have somebody who knows what he's doing?
Elijah Sanchez
That's what we had before for the most part, but our new GM suggested by organizing by flavor profile instead. He feels that would allow people to confidently try new things... "I like X so I'm sure I'll love Y" and allow us to continue to upsell and pair effectively.
Lucas Sanchez
Heh... user some days that's not a terrible idea..... We have some serious eye candy though.
Asher Allen
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instead of organizing them by flavors, maybe organize them by what they pair best with?
Asher Brooks
>We have some serious eye candy though. Nothing wrong with that my man. Nothing wrong at all. But if a serious buyer is coming in, he's gonna say cut the bullshit and give me somebody who know's what the hell he's talking about.
Eli Carter
That's a pretty cool idea. There is serious potential to do some great sales. I'll suggest that to the GM as a backup plan if I can't figure out a cohesive plan for flavor organization.
Dominic Cooper
Try the same but opposite then (hard, Nutty, Fruity) and divy that up with the first cheeses being Italian the second being French and so on until you get a pattern that is easy for you guests to select from. Or try based on wine pairings if that is your market (dry red complimentary cheeses on the left, all the way to crisp Whites on the right and stuff like dry whites and low tannin reds in between)?
Nathan Myers
Our old GM was a poon hound. The floor girls are kind of general help, cashiering, grocery stocking, etc. We have two extremely knowledgeable wine sommeliers on staff who can help the serious buyers.
Hunter Parker
and as an added benefit, you can have that shit close by >oh hey customer, i see you're buying that nutty, earthy cheese, did you notice that red wine right over there, pairs nicely with it
Daniel Gray
I think this is closest to what I've been thinking so far. Any suggestions for sections?
We are shooting somewhere between 30 and 50 between all the styles.
Camden Gomez
A supermarket chain in my country did this. Essentially every store has one or two people who get a cheese training.
When you are buying they suggest stuff based on a personal conversation and let you try different stuff. (Also rotating presentation of the cheeses on sale. "Cheese of the week")
Bought 6 new specimens of cheese that day.
It's a fucking chain user. Do as the giant reptiles do user. They wouldn't do it if it wouldn't have proven worthy of their money. It's a GERMAN CHAIN user! They only way their stores can be made more efficient is by human slave labour.
People are too stupid to try new things them self's.
fuck me this is so funny. If every store in the world stocks by alphabetical color it would be absolute chaos
Austin Howard
That's a nice cheese section... I still come back to my point of listing by flavor descriptors such as nutty, fruity, blue, grassy, etc. A good ten to fifteen different categories should cover everything I would think.
Fuck that makes brain hurt just thinking about it.
Nathaniel Kelly
just throw some signage with the cheese on pairing. >btw this goes good with whatever faggy white you sound like you know enough about food and nothing about marketing. why are you taking over?
Noah Reed
i want to open a grocery store that takes food seriously and allows each department complete freedom. looking for a bison steak? talk to the head butcher and he'll have it asap. i want all my department personnel to be salesmen first. default answer should be >we'll have it inside of 48 hours
Wyatt Edwards
should be simple enough. - moldy soft cheeses - other soft cheeses - hard salty cheeses - hard normal salt level cheeses - specifically spreadable cheeses - novelty cheeses, like fruit or nut rolls, etc
i'm a cheeselet, does the outer ring blend? like does tilsit have a similar taste to taleggio? or is grana padano the softest of the hard cheeses?
Justin Lopez
I would first consider sorting by country of origin. But...then I would look at basic varieties. If you have more varieties than COA then do it by variety. I would not break it down by flavor profile. The only reason being that depending on a few factors one being the palate and experience of the consumer...your nutty may come off as fruity and your fruity may come off as sweet...or whatever. Don't try and sell flavor. Sell romance and reputation. It's assumed all of your products are of high quality. Your salesman can make recommendations but what they recommend will depend largely on input from the consumer and what needs to move. Let the customer tell you what they think is fruity or nutty or whatever. I would organize the cheese by animal then age then any applicable sub-catagories.
Chase White
Top Right here, our quadrant is superior. We are both top and right.
Michael Bailey
Thank you user. I really like this idea as well. Organizing by type of milk at the top level is a great idea.
I think the direction I'm leaning now is to go by animal milk type, country of origin, age and/or intensity.
Josiah Smith
this nigga knows what's up. may i ask what you do for a living in generic terms?
Austin Baker
Yeah that's what my local supermarket does. All the hard cheeses you grate over pasta together, all the melting cheeses together, all the fancy cracker cheeses together, feta and sheep's milk together etc
Ryan Sanchez
Sprouts is a chain that kind of manages to do this without being pretentious or overpriced. Especially the meat department, they have good shit and the butchers are bros who know their stuff. At least my local store.
Benjamin Williams
liquor stores should have a chart like this for beer amd wine. I never know what to get and the staff are fucking retards.
Austin Russell
Why does it need to be reorganized? Sorry OP but flavor profiles/characteristics is dumb. And if your staff isn't knowledgeable and can't do their job then they are too and that's your fault. Country of origin, name, milk type, characteristics/flavor profiles.
Ryder Ross
The GM was never a fan of the previous chef's set up, it was all over the place. Podda classico next to smoked gouda next to fresh mozzarella.... I think he took the approach if it fits it sits. GM challenged me to make some sense of it.
