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Grande Cheese Equivalent

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Galen_Reid

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I’m looking for a cheese that is very similar to Grande whole milk mozzarella. I am paying $3.05 a pound and have checked with several different suppliers for a better price with no luck.
 
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I want 2 drive a Cadillac, but can only afford a VW We all face the same dilemma…

Either raise your prices to reflect your actual cost increases, or blend the Grande (as many of us do) with another cheese you like…I have blended Grande w/the GFS house brand & was satisfied…

Our new store is using a US Food house brand made/packed by Saputo…

We only use diced mozz, for speed & blendability…
 
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Many of us are facing the same situation. I figured I had 4 options:
  1. Raise my retail prices to reflect the cost increase, which is about $.35 per 14" pizza. The question is, am I going to lower my retail when cost go back down?
  2. Ensure I am doing everything I can to portion control, and maybe offset the cost increase with total cheese purchased
  3. Cut Grande with a lower cost brand, thereby taking a chance I wont lose too much business from customers who might be disatisfied with my new product.
  4. Ride out the storm, and hope I pick up business from competitors who raised prices or switched to possibly inferior cheese.
Only you know the right answer for your operation. I’m going with #4 and #2 and see what happens, but will take a price increase if I have to. I can’t imagine changing my product.

Good Luck.
 
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don’t ride it out and don’t change your product take the increase people will understand they are seeing it at the gas pumps and in the grocery store and if you dont take the increase they may possibly think you were gouging them to begin with, wage is going up, our product cost is all going up, energy etc…
 
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I used to use Grande but switched a long time ago but not because of the price. If your customers eat the pizza in your store then Grande is great, however i found that if the pizza is being delivered Grande gets tough as it cools and in not the best quality for delivery pizza.

That being said there are several cheeses that are high quality that i feel are a better choice for my pizza due to the fact i’m about 70% deliver. Almost any Wisconsin whole milk mozzarella will be good. Ask your distributor, they may have one with their own label that will also give you considerable cost savings. Ask them for samples and try them out for yourself.

You may find one you like better. You may not. But take a look, it doesn’t cost to shop.
 
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GT:
I used to use Grande but switched a long time ago but not because of the price. If your customers eat the pizza in your store then Grande is great, however i found that if the pizza is being delivered Grande gets tough as it cools and in not the best quality for delivery pizza.
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GREAT IDEA. I’ve not actually heard anyone mention testing their cheese for a 30 to 40 minute wait inside a bag after baking to see what the pizza ingredient . . . like cheese . . . does. I’m adding that to my little tool bag to be sure I pay attention to that when I make an ingredient change.
 
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2 cheeses that I used that are pretty close to Grande in taste are Lugano and Dragone. I know Saputo makes Dragone but I can’t remember the company that makes Lugano. I did a blind taste test and not 1 person could tell the difference between Lugano and Grande. I had to switch to Dragone since my supplier stopped carrying Lugano. It’s hard to tell the difference between this cheese and Grande as well. I paid $1.95/lb. for Dragone whole milk shredded mozzarella on my last invoice.
 
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