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Cheese Prices - Chicago Area?

J

Joe

New member
Just opened my first shop in Chicagoland after relocating back this way from San Francisco. Maybe it’s because I’m a new shop and haven’t established a volume yet but so far cheese prices here are insane compared to California.

I’ve checked Battaglia, Greco, US Foods, and Sysco. All were +0.60/lb over market or higher for their name brand mozzarella. For example, US Foods has WM mozz under their brand Roseli for $2.66/lb and Grande (the so-called king of mozzarella) has WM mozz for $2.61/lb. In SF, it’s common the cheese prices would be around 0.20/lb over market across all distributors for their name brand mozzarella. With the market closing at $1.61/lb for block yesterday and around that the past several days of trading, the cheese prices should be around $1.81-1.85/lb.

Anyone else using a different distributor in Chicago area with better mozzarella prices?
 
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last week I paid $1.71 a pound for battaglia moz…battaglia and greco seem to always be cheaper than the nation wide guys. with greco coming in just a bit more expensive than battaglia…greco is coming in at 1.89 this week.
 
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tguag said:
last week I paid $1.71 a pound for battaglia moz…battaglia and greco seem to always be cheaper than the nation wide guys. with greco coming in just a bit more expensive than battaglia…greco is coming in at 1.89 this week.
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Which brand of mozz cheese from Battaglia?
 
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Joe!

Welcome back to Illinois, buddy. What’s the name of your shop? I’d like to follow on fb. I’m paying around $2.30 for Grande part skim mozz from Greco. We buy 12-15 cases a week and shop them weekly against GFS, so we likely get a solid deal.

You going to Pizza Expo this year?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
 
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Joe!

Welcome back to Illinois, buddy. What’s the name of your shop? I’d like to follow on fb. I’m paying around $2.30 for Grande part skim mozz from Greco. We buy 12-15 cases a week and shop them weekly against GFS, so we likely get a solid deal.

You going to Pizza Expo this year?

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk
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Hey Patrick,
No I can’t make it this year. First one I’ve missed in years. Just opened up my new spot and it’s packed every night (150+ seats) so I’m likely a prisoner here until operations start running smooth as I ween myself out gradually.
Thanks for the response. I was using Greco and the service was great but switched over to Battaglia for most pizza supplies and still shop them against Sysco/US Foods. I have perfect credit but Greco will only do net/14 terms for some reason. My other 17 vendors are all set at net/30. Very odd. Just easier for me to do payments once a month. I’ve never had net/14 with any vendor in my 16 year career. Battaglia also will make my custom boxes for a good price and they’ll store them in their warehouse instead of forcing me to order 12 cases of each size! Who has room for that?!
You going to do a 2nd location or stick with one big boy? Think this is my last rodeo and kinda over multi-unit ops. Hope all is well amigo!
 
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Try Performance/Roma. I have great credit and Greco gave me COD no terms! They even had the audacity to email me and congratulate me on getting C.O.D. I have 14 - 21 day terms with every other supplier.

I called their credit department and the reason they gave me is that I have too many inquiries. I told them no kidding I am opening a restaurant everyone under the sun is pulling a credit report. They are no longer majority owned by the Greco’s a hedge fund has taken control.

Now in Chicago Panos Foods is trying to Branch out big time. The salesman has come in but I did not get a chance to sit down with him to get prices. A few friends of mine that own different concepts tell me their pricing is great. Hopefully this helps out best of luck with the new restaurant.
 
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Joe said:
Hey Patrick,
No I can’t make it this year. First one I’ve missed in years. Just opened up my new spot and it’s packed every night (150+ seats) so I’m likely a prisoner here until operations start running smooth as I ween myself out gradually.
Thanks for the response. I was using Greco and the service was great but switched over to Battaglia for most pizza supplies and still shop them against Sysco/US Foods. I have perfect credit but Greco will only do net/14 terms for some reason. My other 17 vendors are all set at net/30. Very odd. Just easier for me to do payments once a month. I’ve never had net/14 with any vendor in my 16 year career. Battaglia also will make my custom boxes for a good price and they’ll store them in their warehouse instead of forcing me to order 12 cases of each size! Who has room for that?!
You going to do a 2nd location or stick with one big boy? Think this is my last rodeo and kinda over multi-unit ops. Hope all is well amigo!
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what the what! i live in Des Plaines…whats he new place? i’ll come by.
 
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