SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- Price Chopper Supermarkets here has found that a trip to Wisconsin can be a sharp move when it comes to selling specialty cheese.
With an eye to the future, the chain instituted a sort of student-exchange program that involved sending its cheese specialist out to work side by side with Wisconsin cheesemakers. The effort culminated last month in a jam-packed-with-action promotion that included bringing the Wisconsin cheesemakers to Price Chopper stores to talk to customers -- and to demo their cheese.
In addition, the promotion, which ran the entire month of October, featured special prices, big ads, inflated plastic cows and radio talk shows. All that activity, timed as it was, set the stage well for the holiday selling season, officials said.
"October provides a great kick-off for the traditional holiday season. Cheese sales rise during that season anyway, but I wanted to head into it with a big jump in sales," said Michel Bray, specialty-cheese manager for the 96-unit Price Chopper.
In a unique move that underscored its strong commitment to the category, Price Chopper sent Bray to Wisconsin last summer to actually make cheese alongside some of its cheesemaker-suppliers. Then, beginning the first weekend in October, the chain brought the cheesemakers to selected stores near its headquarters here to tell their story to customers.
"We got great feedback. Customers said they thought it was a lot of fun, that it was very informative, and it gave them a chance to try products they hadn't tried before," Bray said. "They told us they were surprised and pleased that Price Chopper would bring the cheesemakers from Wisconsin to their own area here," he added.
Bruce Workman, head cheesemaker and production manager at RothKase USA Ltd., Monroe, Wis. -- Price Chopper's visiting cheesemaker the last weekend in October -- said he could tell customers enjoyed the educational demos.
"We used a cheese plugger to pull plugs for tasting, and we explained that this is the way cheese graders test cheese. They said they enjoyed hearing about these things and how to use Gruyere. We talked about fondues, and serving it after dinner," Workman said.
The customers' interest was reflected in cheese sales, he added.
At one store, just during his three-and-a-half hour demo, Price Chopper sold upwards of 40 pounds of Gruyere and 20 pounds of butterkase, Workman said.
Chainwide, cheese sales started climbing sharply the first weekend in October when the cheese promotion got its send-off, officials said.
"In the first week, we had double-digit increases year-to-date in sales of Wisconsin cheeses, and that's an average of all our stores. Some of them did -- and are still doing -- better than that. In fact, phenomenally," Bray said.
He explained that while just five stores in the Albany area featured visiting cheesemakers each weekend during the promotion, all 96 units of Price Chopper participated in the sale and celebration of Wisconsin cheese.
The promotion was heralded with an ad in Price Chopper's chainwide circular that occupied two-thirds of a page and featured a photo of Bray at work in a Wisconsin cheese plant. Spot radio commercials also featured Bray telling how he worked with cheesemakers last summer.
Prices for most Wisconsin varieties were reduced by $1 a pound. The price for a specially aged white cheddar, however, was dropped $2 a pound, and the special prices were held all month, Bray said.
Inside the store, colorful signs, banners, inflatable cows and other point-of-sale materials helped tell the Wisconsin cheese story. They were supplied by the Madison, Wis.-based Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. Also, when word got out about Bray's cheesemaking venture, the local consumer media took notice. Area newspapers ran stories in their food sections and Bray was interviewed on Albany's top morning radio show.
It was Bray himself who initiated the idea of Price Chopper's sending him to Wisconsin to learn cheesemaking from the experts. He said he knew that if he actually made some cheese, saw what's involved in producing different types of it, he could better train Price Chopper associates, and he and they would be able to sell more of the product.
"As the cheese specialist for the chain, I felt it would be easier for me to explain cheese if I had made it. I don't purport to have become a cheesemaker now by any means, but I do understand the process much better," Bray said. He added that he felt he had never learned so much in a week's time as he did on his cheesemaking venture.
"They took me at my word when I said I wanted to really work. Bruce Workman had me up at 4 o'clock in the morning making Gruyere. When I was done, he showed up with a bucket and a brush and told me to clean the copper vat I'd used to make the cheese in," Bray said.
He explained that genuine Gruyere cheese must be made in a copper-lined vat because enzymes in milk interact with copper to create the authentic product.
''[Workman] is the only cheesemaker in the United States who makes traditional Gruyere. I only sell Swiss Gruyere and Bruce's," Bray said.
At another plant, Bray made hot pepper jack cheese. That was at Meister Cheese Co., Muscoda, Wis., where cheesemaker Dan Meister turns out such exotica as peanut butter jack and cappuccino jack. Price Chopper, however, carries only his more mainstream varieties, Bray said.
Bray also worked at Belgioso, Denmark, Wis., maker of Italian cheeses, and Widmer Cheese Cellars, Theresa, Wis., where master cheesemaker Joe Widmer makes brick cheese and cheddar.
"We went from plants with highly mechanized production to ones where it's almost entirely done by hand. Joe Widmer uses the same bricks his grandfather used 70 years ago to press cheese," Bray said.
The month-long promotion of Wisconsin cheese was a first for Price Chopper. The company had not previously run a promotion that long on a single type of product, Bray said.
The promotion, with its particular fanfare, is characteristic of efforts spearheaded by Bray since he was hired by the chain a little more than a year ago.
Bray said he believes in creative promotions, in focusing in on particular items and, above all, he believes in specialty cheeses.
He said Price Chopper brought him on board because it wanted to put a new focus on its specialty cheeses. Indeed, the company created a new position for Bray, and it has paid off in double-digit increases in cheese sales.
Bray had previously been specialty-cheese manager at a Buffalo unit of Wegmans Food Markets, Rochester, N.Y., and before that was with Sutton Place Gourmet, a Rockville, Md., specialty store that's highly respected for its specialty-cheese department.
Bray's initial approach has been to constantly remerchandise cheese cases, develop informative and attractive signage, make good use of help offered by suppliers and keep his staff informed and enthusiastic, he said. He reports to Tom Brewer, Price Chopper's vice president of deli merchandising.
When he joined Price Chopper, there were no employees dedicated to specialty cheeses, Bray said. Now there are 15 stores that have full-time and part-time associates dedicated to the category, and there will be more, Bray said.
In new stores, where the demographics will support it, a full-service cheese department will be installed, the cheese specialist said.
