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Looking for a cheese that competes with Grande.

You’ll get lots of good traffic for this question. Give us an idea what “competes” means to you: pricing, flavor profile, browning, stretch, coverage, shelf life, manufacturer communication, availability in market, customers demanding the brand, product consistency, milk quality, oiling out resistance, fat content, mouth feel, compatibility with other toppings/flavors . . . you really do get a lot going on when you talk to pizza guys about their cheese. Or should I say THESE pizza guys.
 
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Do not believe there is any mass produced and available mozz comparable to Grande, but not to be discouraged u could achieve some great tasting and performing results by blending Grande with other blends or straights cheeses. A bit of a hassle though
 
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Anyone who doesn’t buy Grande, is competing with them, and I think that would be a big number.
 
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We’ve just recently switched over to a blend of Mozz & Asiago from Vantaggio through Delco Foods, part of the Bellissimo group. It was very “win-win” for us as we ended up with a lesser cost, better melt, great flavor and a really nice finish look. I have played with most of the Grande offerings like most of the shops here, this is beyond them on OUR pizza in OUR ovens.
 
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pizza2007:
Anyone who doesn’t buy Grande, is competing with them, and I think that would be a big number.
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I am pretty sure his is looking for a quality level competitor not just everyone else that makes cheese! :roll:
 
We were leaning towards using Grande for our new DELCO, but are now leaning towards Vantaggio D’Oro’s Mozz (By Bellissimo)…tasted better with everyone who tried it, looked the same as grande through our impinger oven, and costs about 40 - 50 cents less…
 
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Since you are doing a Delco, do yourself a favor with your taste testing, do your test 20 minutes after the pie comes out of the oven and taken from a box that has riden in the car, that is what your customer experiences.

Get a bunch of friends over at your house, cook up pies using several different cheeses and deliver them to the house for tasting. Do not tell anyone else which is which. Better yet, have someone at your store number the boxes and don’t let them tell you either which is which.

You may be very suprised which cheese you like best.
 
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bodegahwy:
You may be very suprised which cheese you like best.
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This. I have seen marketing data that some markets actually prefer pepperoni that cups up has oil in it, and have had actual customer complaints about it, “The pepperoni on my pizza didn’t make a little bowl of oil like the frozen pizzas do.”

Yes, it baffles the mind, but trying to educate your customers is a losing proposition.
 
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Pizzamancer go check out Ezzo for your pepperoni. I have tried their products and I am not sure if anyone on here uses them…but they are awesome. Especially the little ones that cup up and brown around the edges.

www.ezzo.com/home.aspx
 
I tried Bacio, a new cheese supplied by Roma, and was pleased with the melt and taste. Roma has not been able to get enough commitments in my area to supply shredded or diced Bacio, and I am not prepared to shred cheese.
 
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Pepperoni…Ezzo…We have used it for years but it’s not available beyond Chicago going west. This is a cup and crisp and this is what we are known for.

Boy do I hate seeing the Grande questions…YES your choice is cheese is all about your preference or your customers. For us, we used an FA and I equated it to high school pizza cheese.

Roma Cheese…GARBAGE. Please do not flame me but I have a location out west and we tested their cheese and it was garbage. A bit of education here, private labled cheeses for the most part are treated as a commodity item. Meaning? Today you will be buying private lable brand 1 and the ingredients are X…but 6 months from now when the farm that produced their cheese goes belly up the ingredients are now Y from another farmer. YES they do have specifications for what is expected in their cheese but you wonder why your customers are asking if you changed you cheese…you ask your food company what has changed and then come back with…hey it’s the same product number so it’s the same cheese.

I did a ton of research before moving to Grande, YES there may be other options out there but none that I found. If you buy diced, much easier to portion control, and you take 10 oz of Grande and 10oz of Brand X and make the same pizza…we used LESS Grande than Brand X. Sooooooo when you look at pound cost for us Grande was a bit less in the end and with that came Consistency…Taste…and quality.

In the end, the decision is yours and if you do a blind taste test it would be useful. I have been with Grande for about 8 years and have built both a great product around it and a great relationship with my Grande rep who has been there every time I ran into problems with things other than cheese. I remember a time that we were giving away free pizzas…1400 in all. I ran out of boxes halfway through the day and my Grande rep came through for me because my food rep was on vacation.

Yes my profit is not as great as others using lesser priced cheese…but I know that my return customer rate is higher and I do not get the cheap pizza buyer as my customer.
 
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`More specifically, house labels at all the major distributors is bid out on a regular basis )often 6 or 12 month contracts). They send out there product specs, production and service requirements (RFP) and the manufacturers bid on the contracts. You can guess that low prices will win. So, it is always prudent to find out who the manufacturer is for your ‘sensitive’ products in house labels . . . tomatoes, cheese, flour, etc. Liquid Margarine is often liquid margarine, and not a sensitive item for our house. I found that Saputo was supplying one of the labels I used at USFoods, and that satisfied me that it was serviceable . . . the other was an outfit in Wisconsin whose name escapes me now (began with a W). Anyway, the cheese has remained the same contract for 4+ years now, according to the people I ask every 6 months or so. I have been lucky . . . the one change I saw long ago turned out to be for my benefit, as it all of a sudden had an improved bake character . . . cool beaners.

Get a taste test and know that the house labels are contracts bid periodically, and find out who manufacturers for the label. You’ll be in decent shape until they rebid and it comes in all funky.
 
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I used grande for a little over a year. Frankly, it was a year too long. I just don’t get it. I don’t get why they are so popular. I think one reason is that it seems that the NAME is the first that people starting off in the biz hear…how its so much better than other cheeses. But, I admit, some pretty knowledable pizza guys use it. Dom DeMarco uses it…and hes a stickler for high end ingrediants.

To me, its just too salty. I mean REAL salty. No cream taste at all. No butter smell…IMO, if you buy LOW MOISTURE, WHOLE MILK blocks and shred them up yourself, you will see the difference. Less salty, more perfume…BUT a bit more work.

Even Grandes curd is inferior to Polly O…Im just missing the point with GRande, I guess.
 
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