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cheese prices...how much you pay?

S

Short_Rib

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I know this topic has been there before but it needs to ne update because prices change every day. I was quoted $3.96 for grande shredded. Free delivery with $250 minimum. Restaurant depot has only its brand in all 7 stores around my locations $2.79 any one has better idea to obtain better prices? I am in NY.
 
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I am on the west coast but have found that Roma(PFG) and US foods typically have better pricing then RD on cheese.
 
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pizza99 said:
I am on the west coast but have found that Roma(PFG) and US foods typically have better pricing then RD on cheese.
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Roma and sysco refused delivery of cheese only. They said you need to order other products. and sysco does not carry grande anyway. what brand you order and how much you pay?
 
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Roma and sysco refused delivery of cheese only. They said you need to order other products. and sysco does not carry grande anyway. what brand you order and how much you pay?
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Saputo refuses to deliver anything else unless you buy their cheese.
 
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Roma and sysco refused delivery of cheese only. They said you need to order other products. and sysco does not carry grande anyway. what brand you order and how much you pay?
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I use Sysco’s Arrezzio brand, which for all 10 years that I’ve been using it has been Saputo (you can find the manufacturer of a private label by looking at the plant ID on the box). There are Sysco houses that will ship Leprino under the Arrezzio label, which is a cheese that I don’t care for.

I pay 17 cents over block, on a two week lag, so this week I paid 2.181/lb for whole-milk block. That smashes the RD price.

Knowing the freight charges from the Saputo factory to me I’m sure they only make a couple of cents a pound, and that’s why they won’t deliver just cheese. Even if you tack on another 20 cents a pound it’s probably still not worth it for them. At 500 pounds per week that would be 100 bucks, and they have to pay a salesman, receive it, hold it refrigerated, load it on to a truck, deliver it to me, wait 4 weeks for their payment (after probably paying Saputo two weeks prior), and assume the credit risk all along the way. That 100 bucks gets burned pretty quickly.

It’s a tight rope that I walk, because I have to be aware to put enough on the truck each week that nobody over there starts wondering if they’re actually making money off of my account.
 
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I am exclusively Grande here, And my last delivery of their diced Whole-Milk mozz was $3.03/LB, I get it through a dairy/specialty supplier

@Piper , I heard that sysco considers the cost of a truck stopping is $250.00. I do not know how that cost is figured, or if accurate.
I act as a sysco drop point for some lesser volume places near me that can’t meet their minimums, As long as I do not need to write a check and get reimbursed for their product, It doesn’t bother me. And if I ever need a favor from another place, I got some coming my way.
 
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We use sysco aerrizo and we paid 2.11 this week. 2 week lag on price

We go threw roughly 2000lbs a week We are very happy with this cheese
 
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@Piper , I heard that sysco considers the cost of a truck stopping is $250.00. I do not know how that cost is figured, or if accurate.
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I think it depends on the definition of “accurate”. If they take all of the overhead of the entire house and the variable costs of the drop, and divide by the number of drops per year, then $250 could be accurate.

The marginal costs of dropping a truck (which I would argue is what actually matters) couldn’t possibly be $250. We’d see minimum orders of over $1,300 if $250 was the marginal cost, and around here it’s only a $500 minimum.

Sysco runs about a 20% gross margin, so a minimum of $500 implies a marginal cost of $100. I assume they build some profit into the minimum drop, so maybe the marginal is around $70 or $80?
 
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Piper said:
I use Sysco’s Arrezzio brand, which for all 10 years that I’ve been using it has been Saputo (you can find the manufacturer of a private label by looking at the plant ID on the box). There are Sysco houses that will ship Leprino under the Arrezzio label, which is a cheese that I don’t care for.

I pay 17 cents over block, on a two week lag, so this week I paid 2.181/lb for whole-milk block. That smashes the RD price.

Knowing the freight charges from the Saputo factory to me I’m sure they only make a couple of cents a pound, and that’s why they won’t deliver just cheese. Even if you tack on another 20 cents a pound it’s probably still not worth it for them. At 500 pounds per week that would be 100 bucks, and they have to pay a salesman, receive it, hold it refrigerated, load it on to a truck, deliver it to me, wait 4 weeks for their payment (after probably paying Saputo two weeks prior), and assume the credit risk all along the way. That 100 bucks gets burned pretty quickly.

It’s a tight rope that I walk, because I have to be aware to put enough on the truck each week that nobody over there starts wondering if they’re actually making money off of my account.
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Piper, we also use Saputo (Wisconsin) whole milk block and paid $2.37 this week. How many lbs a week do you think you need to enter into a block plus arrangement? I am assuming you use the block price on cheese reporter 2 weeks ago and add the number ($2.00 + $0.17) and they manually adjust your cheese price every week?

Also does your supplier ever sub another Saputo cheese like MD or CA if they are short…I always check the plant ID’s

Thanks for your help.
 
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famousperry said:
Also does your supplier ever sub another Saputo cheese like MD or CA if they are short…I always check the plant ID’s

Thanks for your help.
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Perry, I’m pretty sure that Saputo closed the Maryland plant a couple months ago. We used to use a cheese out of that plant but at Pizza Expo they sat us down and let us know that plant was closing and we would have to find a cheese from WI or CA to use. After a few trials we settled on one from Wisconsin that seems to perform well for us.
 
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I recently paid $2.86 for Block Grande.
Restaurant Depot is selling a Saputo Cheese for 2.45/lb.

$3.97 seems ridiculously high. I would call Grande direct and ask them what distributors carry it in your area.
The more volume you do, the better pricing you can probably get. Cheese is a small margin item as most only are making a few cents per
pound on it. They make more money on the other products they sell.

I buy from a smaller distributor as i do not trust the big distributors.
 
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famousperry said:
Piper, we also use Saputo (Wisconsin) whole milk block and paid $2.37 this week. How many lbs a week do you think you need to enter into a block plus arrangement? I am assuming you use the block price on cheese reporter 2 weeks ago and add the number ($2.00 + $0.17) and they manually adjust your cheese price every week?

Also does your supplier ever sub another Saputo cheese like MD or CA if they are short…I always check the plant ID’s

Thanks for your help.
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I’m not sure on poundage needed, but we use about 500/wk. I’ve had this agreement for a very long time though, back when I was probably only using 300. But at the time, I was buying everything from them so that may have made them more willing.

Yes, how you described it is exactly how it works. Mine goes off of the weekly average.

If they are short on the Arrezzio then they delivery me the actual Saputo labeled cheese. Unfortunately, they also charge the higher price which really ticks me off. Doesn’t happen often though.
 
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We use Saputo whole milk block. We pay .29 over market with a 1 week lag. Friday we checked in at 2.37. Milk and cheese prices have lagged behind inflation for a long time and they seem to be catching up this last year. The cost of just about everything has doubled in the last 20 years. Real estate, cars, wages, gas, and just about all of our pizza ingredients also. Our cheese price back in the mid 90’s always floated around the $1.50 mark. By that math we should be paying $3.00 today. I’m fine with paying less. I just wouldn’t be surprised if it went up another half dollar a pound
 
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Piper said:
Except the price of pizza, unfortunately, which is cheaper even in real terms than it was in 1994. Accounting for inflation, it’s probably half the price.
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Yes, I agree. I always say " You used to sell pizzas for $10 and pay people $5. Now you sell pizzas for $5 and pay people $10 "
 
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When i first started in pizza back in the 90’s most of our deals where $10. Now 20 years later we still offer $10 deals and all of our expenses have doubled in that time.
 
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We are using a fresh, never frozen mozz/muenster blend of shredded cheese now and it comes in at 0.39 per pound over block average plus vendor %. We are currently at $2.74. Even though the cheese company has a plant here in CO our cheese is from CA as the local plant only does QLC and some other types. If the frieght was not killing us on the price, we’d have a great cheese at a great price that I put up against any Grande product any day.
 
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We just bought a bunch of cheese at $2.23 ahead of the price increases coming in the next week or two as the block prices has been rising. We used to see prices at less than 20 cents over block but block was $1.40 then so 20 cents was 14% markup. 14% markup now is more like 25-30 cents over block and that is what we have been seeing.
 
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$3.75 a pound here in the great white north for block mozza. Shred/blend in house. Small local supplier. Sysco can’t touch price even though we buy everything else through them.
 
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