I’ve been working on opening a place for a few weeks now. I’ve wanted to use Roma for a long time, so I thought I’d give PFG a try. What is the deal with these guys? PFG is destroying what use to be a great company. I’ve been trying for 2 weeks to get samples from our sales rep and still haven’t gotten anything. I’ve also been talking about using the Fontanini pepperoni the whole time. We were trying to place our order and they tell me they can’t get it for a month or so. They also said they didn’t have the cheese I asked for, which was on our order guide. I told them I wasn’t paying for Grande if that were the case because they never said a thing about it being a problem to use the 50/50 blend.
Also, the Roma guy is telling me that block+ is a thing of the past and that it isn’t used anymore. He said he’d sell me the cheese at his cost plus 5%. Well last week the block was at $1.27/lb. They are wanting to sell me cheese at $1.85/lb. Now before when I spoke to Roma, they were paying roughly 10-15% above block for cheese and I was going to pay another 10% or so above that. At $1.85, we are paying 46% above the market price. The Roma guy was bragging about being the largest cheese buyer in the country, so I think they are lying about something. I find it hard to believe that they are paying 30-40% above block if they are the largest buyer like they say. I told them they need to be able to let me audit them sometimes to verify I’m truly paying 5% over, but they seem uneasy about doing that.
Also, our sales rep is a major disappointment. The guy hasn’t gotten us a single sample. He told us last night he had to go to bed instead of helping us with our opening order. He said he doesn’t have time to help us put together an opening order. He also has no clue about any product you ask him about. I also can’t open my place with my actual product because he hasn’t done anything to get us what we need. I really don’t know how long I will continue with these guys. I’ve been nothing but disappointed.