Cheese Buyer - May 2025

42 @specialityfood Keep on top of costings, Dylan adds. “Don’t try to retail cheeses upwards of £10. ‘Grab and go’ cheeses have almost no labour costs involved. Behind the counter, with the more expensive varieties, you’re working hard to make that margin, but in ‘grab and go’, you’ve got a set margin. It’s easy, people are making their own choices.” Labelling is a final consideration in the multideck. “Some of our cheeses come in, and there’s no English on the label. It’s down to us to ensure each piece gives customers the right amount of information.” Don’t complicate things though, he concludes. “You shouldn’t be too elaborate by calling things by their brand or given name. If it’s a Camembert, label it as a Camembert!” Open horizontal displays One of the most visually impactful ways to showcase your cheeses is as whole wheels layered in open displays on a counter top – as at Neal’s Yard Dairy or The Courtyard Dairy. Cheese expert and author Ned Palmer, who spent his formative years in cheese working for Neal’s Yard Dairy, says he finds this method of display evokes the best reaction from customers, who include things like Halloumi and Camembert, and we have four to five different types of Mozzarella.” The only time the team ‘go to town’ is around Christmas, when the variety increases, aligning with the trend towards bigger basket spends., so customers might find a mini Mont D’or nestled by the Cheddars. Speaking of Cheddar, they’re an important part of the multideck experience. “We normally have a few block Cheddars in ours – a mild, mature and creamy so there’s a bit of variation,” says Dylan, who recommends cutting most of your selection into 180-200g pieces, though with Cheddar and Parmesan youmight offer smaller pieces too. “They’re ideal if people are making a cheese sauce,” he explains. “We have a beautiful deli counter with around 80 cheeses, but here we offer cheese customers can just pop in their regular basket with their milk, eggs and bread.” Alongside everyday wins, the food hall has a collection of what Dylan calls ‘wild cards’ – five regularly changing cheeses chosen by the team to add a point of difference for those shoppers who don’t have the time (or confidence) to approach the counter. It’s a valuable device for helping them to discover new flavours. T here are myriad ways to display cheese – and how you choose to do it will be dictated by the size and style of your shop. If you’re a tiny deli, a grab and go fridge with pre-portioned pieces might suit you well. Meanwhile, grandiose food halls or larger specialist market stalls can go to town, stacking their finest fromages in impressive towers –which certainly do catch the eye. However big or small your cheese collection, here are a few pointers to help set you in the right direction. ‘Grab and go’ and multidecks Love them or loathe them (andmost customers do love them) truckles are a big part of the conversation when it comes to ‘grab and go’ fridges, says Dylan Fourie, deli manager at Macknade. “There’s a bit of a truckle war at the moment,” he laughs, saying their portability, long shelf life, and the fact they’re already wrapped and simple for customers to understand, makes them an easy win in retail. Beyond these, he thinks you should limit what’s on offer here, and stickmostly to varieties your customers already know. “It’s ‘grab and go’ for a reason – it’s not a considered purchase. So we How you display your cheese canmake a huge difference to sales. So, what are the best ways to catch your customers’ attention? We asked cheesemongers to share their tips MAKING AN IMPACT are wowed (especially if it’s their first time in-store) by the effect of abundance and bountifulness. “You want to make it all look beautiful and enticing, and this is one of the best ways to do that,” he explains. But a striking display of this kind starts with the very finest condition of cheese –when it’s front and centre in the shop, there really is nowhere to hide. Inspect whole cheeses for blemishes and imperfections (perfectly fine with a natural product, but youmight want to turn these sides away from the front). Cheeses that have already been cut will need ‘facing’. “The face might be starting to fade, even if cheese has been stored under clingfilm. Scrape off the front and neaten it up. Then taste everything before you put it out. Some things might have over ripened or lost their peak.” Having the right number of cheeses in this set up is important, Ned advises. “If you’re in a smallish deli where sales are slower, have fewer cheeses – too many and they could degrade in quality. Pick three Cheddars and then I would get, say, five other cheeses and look after them really well.” As for constructing your display? “Twos and threes stacked work well. Think of the architecture of it. Neal’s Yard liked to have a tall stack either side, swooping to a valley in the middle, like an amphitheatre.” If you have space, you can layer your displays in this way so they look like “lovely still lifes”. Giving some ‘hero’ cheeses their own area, set alone, perhaps on a stand, is a good device for shining a light on varieties that are eating well at that time too. And “put similar things together”. “Bloomy rinds, washed rinds, blues. Place the cheeses so when customers walk up and down the counters they can find what they’re looking for, but also, visually this looks nice – having big bursts of blue or white together.” Another way to make these displays more striking is considering what you place the cheeses on, Ned says. “White cheeses look great on black slate. And get some worn old wooden boards of different thicknesses for a variation on height and depth.” Something many fail to consider, in this type of cheese layout, is the practicality of actually reaching the products, Ned adds. “You can have a big, beautiful display, but what if you can’t get past that big tower to the working piece? Always have a working piece you’ll cut from and use for tastings closest to you and unwrapped!”