PREFACE

“‘The less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food,’ George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigian Pier. ‘When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’.’ THe taste for the kind of sweet drinks Starbucks serves is unlikely to wane any time soon.” – from Financial Times – “Reaching for the Starbucks” by Christopher Caldwell, published February 20, 2009

“Just as our political regeneration will happen locally, in countries and states that learn how to control themselves and demonstrate how to govern effectively in a time of limits, so will our economic regeneration. That will begin in someone’s garage, somebody’s kitchen, as it did in the case of Messrs. Jobs and Wozniak. The comeback will be from the ground up and will start with innovation. No one trusts big anymore. In the future everything will be local. That’s where the magic will be. And no amount of pessimism will stop it once it starts.” – from The Wall Street Journal – “Remembering the Dawn of the Age of Abundance” by Peggy Noonan, published February 21-22, 2009

An excerpt from the keynote speech given by Rob Kaufelt at the Sonoma Valley Cheese Conference, February 23, 2009:

An entire generation of us had grown up, and somewhere along the line we had become the old timers.

An industry had come of age like a Loire Valley chevre, but the easy years seemed to be ending. Here, then, are one old-time cheesemonger’s observations and recommendations.

The American Cheese Society has long since become a moribund body, more interested in talking to itself than developing a new industry. Being kicked off the board has become, for some of us, a badge of honor.

Therefore, I recommend that the ACS turn itself into a professional organization once and for all – with a full time director for our industry, a true clearing house for cheese makers, a participatory body for cheese retailers, an advocacy group engaged in policy and yes, even lobbying work in conjunction with like-minded organizations, such as the NASFT and specialty cheese importers. A social club without participation in economic and policy issues is no longer relevant.

The ACS has done an excellent job of creating a new industry and bringing artisan cheese makers to the attention of the American public and must now move forward.

The distributors have taken advantage of their relative power in our industry for far too long. Producers and retailers must seek new ways to deliver our products with a better infrastructure in order to improve efficiency and decrease costs in the delivery system. The distributors take advantage of producers and retailers both by their delay or refusal to pass along price decreases quickly in a deep recession.

Young companies like Jasper Hill Farm with their caves and marketing have pointed one way to do this anew. These young entrepreneurs need our full support and encouragement, and I call upon others to come up with their own solutions, even if some of them will fail.

At the same time, the distributors are too often asked to do the work that management should be doing, particularly in large food retailing chain stores, whose own management, weaker on the basics of good merchandising, buying and operations than their forbearers, force their distributors and other suppliers to do their own work.

Although a few chains, such as Whole Foods, Wegman’s and Central Markets have set a higher standard for cheese retailing than other chains, this has nevertheless created an unhealthy reliance on doing business with these chains and given them too much power vis a vis the producers or the distributors, forming an insecure economic base.

Therefore it behooves us to assist the other mass market retailers who comprise 95% of the food at home market in this country to do a much better job in selling good cheese. This is the prime purpose of Murray’s experiment with Kroger.

The chains, eager to capitalize on the growth in our field, seek help and provide us with opportunities – our own experiment now with three test stores, will help us determine whether or not two cultures – small, entrepreneurial, individualistic and large, corporate and mass market can benefit each other. At least we will know if the gap is too large, in which case we are truly left to our own devices. No bailouts will be forthcoming.

But if it does work, it will open up opportunities for everyone here, because the demand for good cheese continues to grow even in difficult times

Many cheese makers think that the sheer virtue of making artisan or farmstead cheese entitles them to a place in the retailer’s case or cave without any consideration for how their cheeses taste, how consistent their methods of production, how clean their milk supply, or how it will sell. Worse, they think they’re entitled to a place in the spotlight without having done their homework. Does the world need another soft-ripened cheese? Does it need a knock-off of the European original, which may taste better, and sell for less? Is the appearance of the cheese, or even its name being considered before it goes to market? Often, the answer is no.

Therefore I recommend that each cheese maker establish relationships with key experts in our field, including dairy schools, experts on cultures and production methods, and experts in marketing and merchandising before scaling up production and attempting to conquer a larger market.

A good example is Vermont Butter & Cheese Co. who have grown their business slowly and consistently while maintaining quality standards and a clear understanding of the marketplace.

Although we have great respect for the smallest farmstead producers with their own herds and seasonal cheese, we also at the same time have great respect for those producers who have transitioned to medium size without sacrificing their integrity.

The clicks and clacks of our little world will keep us small when we need to grow. The age of commodity product may or may not be sustainable. If it is, then family farms will continue to die, as will small retailers and others swallowed up by our brand of capitalism. But if smaller models are to work, sustainable models to be proven superior, then we have our work cut out for us, because this is not yet self-evident.

Just the opposite – a world consumed by economic fear will always trade quality for price, taste for yield and service for convenience. Sure, there will be the successful exceptions, eking out a living, or even thriving, but on the margins. And this experiment that we have taken part in for the last 20 or 30 years will be seen, in hindsight, as an opportunity lost – or worse, the work of dilettantes. We must not let that happen.

As I approach my fortieth year of food retailing and 20 years at the helm of Murray’s, I see how far we have come, and how far we have to go. Our little world is part of a much larger movement of farms, and chefs, and farmer’s markets and writers, all of whom preach to the converted. But in order to capitalize on what we have done thus far, we need to change, or the times we live in will swallow us up like so many worthwhile, but now defunct movements of the past. For this is what we have. I urge us to pool our resources, overcome our petty differences and join together to bring to an end the pejorative use of the word “cheesy” once and for all.