? for fellow cheese retailers: knowing/catering to your customer (long, sorry!)

[Louisamae]

I manage a 6 month old small specialty cheese shop & am having some growing pains with getting to know our customer. We are located in a busy tourist town right next to a large hotel & 3 smaller inns. I totally underestimated the large amount of business we'd receive from guests at these places (but of course am very happy to have it!).

These customers want to take cheese & meats to their rooms, they do not have utensils and so want every last bit of what we sell them cut into bite sized pieces. We do not have a slicer, and it is time consuming & laborious to do this amount of work for them (they even want our fresh bread cut up!). When we are slow it is not a big deal, but we are heading into the busy season and are trying to figure out how NOT to do this, without losing them completely.
 
We've made adjustments: we sell little pre-made, "grab-n-go" cheese plates for two/four, we sell pre-sliced prosciutto & meats, crackers, dips, etc. We have plastic utensils and sell cheese utensils ranging from $1.95-$10. We sell rolls in place of the sliced bread...in spite of all this, they still ask.
So 2 questions: (1) Any input regarding this particular situation? (2)Any stories/advice about adjusting to your customers without losing your original vision?
Thanks in advance!

[linuxboy]

When I cater or do anything requiring mass quantities for people, everything is preprepped. Meaning if I'm serving an entree, everything that goes into that entree better be as pre-assembled as possible by the time it goes into the kitchen. Sometimes that means having a line cook prep ingredients, sometimes that requires me to pre-prep, pre-cook, vacuum pack, etc. So in the end, it's just about warming, prepping the final touches, and arranging. All food professionals do this to some degree. In-store delis, for example, will usually buy pre-assembled wholesale items they can repackage or combine in a new way. The prep for the morning includes slicing, arranging so that the bulk of the day can be spent fulfilling orders and behind the counter.

In your case, you need to do a careful analysis of the product mix you are offering, and outline in detail the process it takes to assemble the product. Then, pre-prep in an assembly line before the shop opens enough of as finished as possible of the products so that you can quickly sell items.

If too much time is being spent, then hire more labor or get machinery to save time or offer fewer choices. It is very difficult to survive as an artisan on-the-spot retailer because it is too inefficient when there's variability in the customer flow. Your supply chain must be able to accommodate peaks and troughs, and that requires prepackaged solutions, like pre-sliced, pre-prepped, pre weighed cuts that you can quickly throw together, multiple front people, etc. Large shops are able to do it because they have more people, and enough staff to accommodate them.

just my 1 c.

[Louisamae]

Thanks for the input. The part about being efficient and prepping as much as possible ahead of time hits home. I've been thinking about this for a while & pushing for it to be a scheduled part of our day once it gets busy enough.

[linuxboy]

For cheese and cured meats, for example, what if you prepared your own ready-serve versions for each product you have? Get a slicer and hire a responsible younger person who will work for a reasonable wage and have that person come in for 4 hours each day early and do nothing but slice up each product and put paper between slices, and then vacuum pack away in pouches and leave in the freezer. Then your order flow would go like this:

1) Customer orders, you check case to see if there are pre-sliced portions. Oh and sell only standard increments, like 2 ounces. so each slice is 2 ounces, or whatever other measure. So if a customer wants "about yay much" you're not slicing custom cuts each time but selling standard ones.

2) If there are no pre-sliced cuts, look to the storage fridge, get the vacuum packed bag, bring it out, and start taking from it and packing away the paper-separated slices into one larger bag or wrap to give to the customer. Customer wants more? No problem, just get more. Customer wants another option? No problem, grab and assemble.

3) This way you eliminate the 3-4 steps in your sales cycle and likely cut the time from engagement to time to cash in hand by half.

In this model, it's important to slice daily or every other day and keep everything at 34F so it is as fresh as possible. But some ideal like that or a variation would work so that you segregate roles and have the front person only do sales and other people do prep, pre-packaged combo assembly, etc.

[Majoofi]

sounds like there might be a market for a small selection of premade sandwiches or little picnic baskets.

[DeejayDebi]

You might also consider having them place orders to be picked up later if they insist on having things sliced up and ready to eat.