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Talking cheese....again...

K

Kris

New member
Okay, so I realize we have probably beat a dead horse (or would that be a cow, in this case) but just wanted to ask about cheese again.

The supervisor of our sales rep came by today to tell me I am mis informed about cheese and I just want to make sure because I get a bit stuck in my ways and realizing after 15 years I may be mis informed.

For those of you on block plus pricing it is them CME plus a certain cents…period. So if the block pricing is 1.00 and you get .20 cents over block you pay 1.20?

He is claiming it is block plus .25 cents (for expenses) then an additional .20 cents. I just laughed. I then showed him that even if that were the case we are still WAYYYYY over considering ours is currently block plus 80 cents plus.

Anyways we start with our new vendor Friday and just like the rest of you I will be reaping the wonderful world of cheese prices. We shall see…and just while I mention it the new sales rep is awesome…truly a pleasure to work WITH.

Kris
 
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Yep, it’s just block-plus, no charge for “expenses”.

I pay block + 17 cents. Two weeks ago the weekly average was 1.19417. My cheese today was $1.364.
 
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There is a lag time, but it is straight CME plus. With the lag time we have (around 3 weeks) we are paying $1.60 right now. It will drop again next week. Over the years we have mostly been paying about 20-25 cents above the CME.

Your rep supervisor is yanking your chain. Call the competition.
 
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Thanks Piper you have truly helped during all this. YIPEEEEEEEEEEE I can hardly wait!!! Thanks to the rest of ya too.

I am just overflowing with thanks.

FINALLY GOT SOME CHEESE WITH MY WHINE! 😃

Kris
 
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Piper:
Yep, it’s just block-plus, no charge for “expenses”.

I pay block + 17 cents. Two weeks ago the weekly average was 1.19417. My cheese today was $1.364.
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Forgive me if this question has been posed to you already, Piper, but what type of cheese are you using? LMWM / LMPS? I am getting into it with my distributor about pricing, and I am working on getting on a Block + program with them. Right now, I’m embarrassed to say what I’m paying for my LMWM… But, I’m unclear as how much mark-up for freight I can consider acceptable (as I am in Hawaii…). I have had a pretty good relationship with my distributor for a few years, so I’m trying to not be too accusatory, but I am asking for a breakdown of their “landed” cost before they mark up and sell to me. :?

Am I living in a fantasy-land by thinking they will be honest with their actual costs?
 
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Kris:
Anyways we start with our new vendor Friday and just like the rest of you I will be reaping the wonderful world of cheese prices. We shall see…and just while I mention it the new sales rep is awesome…truly a pleasure to work WITH.
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Kris, good call on switching vendors. Although USFoods is good to me, they’re a big company and managed differently from region to region. When it comes to your business, you must sometimes play hard-ball. These reps are paid on commission and saving their customers money is not always on the top of their priority list. I don’t know if you completely severed ties to USF, but you may want to keep them on as a secondary dist. When that rep is no longer making a commission on you, he may be more willing to go up to bat on your behalf. (hmm… lots of baseball metaphors… must be getting close 8) ) Don’t drink the koolaide that there is a 6 week lag… no way. Also don’t believe him that there is any extra expense margin when you’re on a Block Plus agreement. That’s foolishness.

Hey, I just got to thinking… I could have bought my cheese from my USFoods here (this week, I’m paying $1.29 per #), sold it to you for $1.80 per #, and pocketed 51 cents gross profit. You would have saved a dime per # and I could have made some extra money… :lol:
 
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mrkona:
Forgive me if this question has been posed to you already, Piper, but what type of cheese are you using?
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I’m using LMWM. Unfortunately, I have no idea how being in Hawaii would affect your price. Do they produce any dairy in Hawaii, or is it all shipped from the mainland?
 
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Piper, there is some dairy produced on the island, but there isn’t any large-scale manufacturer that would be able to keep up with our demand. We are currently getting Saputo cheese from the mainland (and it ain’t cheap!) 😦
 
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mrkona:
Piper, there is some dairy produced on the island, but there isn’t any large-scale manufacturer that would be able to keep up with our demand. We are currently getting Saputo cheese from the mainland (and it ain’t cheap!) 😦
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Okay, I had a slow lunch so I checked this out a little bit. This is a guess entirely, so don’t quote me on it!

A truckload of cheese is about 40,000 pounds. I’m assuming that means a 53’ truck which has 4,000 cubic feet; ocean containers are 2,720 cubic feet (68% of capacity) so an ocean container should hold 27,200 pounds of cheese. I’m going to round down to 26,500 because the reefer in an ocean container is inside and takes up a little space.

Just some quick research here but it looks like a CA to HI refrigerated container is about $4,500 to ship. There’s port charges as well, but I have no idea how much. You also have freight from the manufacturer to the CA port and from the HI port to your distributor. I have no idea how much that would be either. Let’s just say the total shipment is going to be around $5,500.

That comes to an extra 20.75 cents per pound in additional freight for you being in HI. That seems low, so I’m probably missing something - but maybe it’s in the ballpark?

This also assumes that they are shipping entire containers at a time.
 
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Wow! Great info, Piper! Thanks so much for taking the time to check that out!

I certainly would hope that they are shipping full containers (even if not full of just cheese, but other chilled items too).

Granted, we are using a really premium product (I can only guess the closest comparison is Grande, but I’ve never tried it… I’m only basing that on the discussions about Grande that I have seen on here, and their website…). But, (and I can’t believe I’m going to say it…) I have been paying $3.04/lb for the last three weeks… :oops: Our high cost for cheese over the past few months was $3.64. :shock:

I think I’m getting hosed…
 
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mrkona:
Wow! Great info, Piper! Thanks so much for taking the time to check that out!

I certainly would hope that they are shipping full containers (even if not full of just cheese, but other chilled items too).

Granted, we are using a really premium product (I can only guess the closest comparison is Grande, but I’ve never tried it… I’m only basing that on the discussions about Grande that I have seen on here, and their website…). But, (and I can’t believe I’m going to say it…) I have been paying $3.04/lb for the last three weeks… :oops: Our high cost for cheese over the past few months was $3.64. :shock:

I think I’m getting hosed…
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I still get green with envy all this talk of low prices for cheese. I am paying $4.53 a pound with the knowledge that there is a price increase scheduled to take place in February.
 
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Well, well, well! I just got word back from my distributor about the questions that I have been bringing up, and he tells me that he just got done meeting with the manufacturer regarding my mozz. And wouldn’t you know it - magically, my price is dropping to $2.09 / lb beginning this week! 😃

Thank you to all you TT’ers for your insight!

Hmmmm… now let’s see what else I can look into with my distributor… :twisted:
 
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Daddio are there too many “hoops” to jump through to consider importing from the US to Canada?..
 
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royster13:
Daddio are there too many “hoops” to jump through to consider importing from the US to Canada?..
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The Canadian goverment has an unbelievible way of manufacturing RED TAPE. The import of dairy products in the amout that I would need would actually increase the price due to the taxes and levies they would impose.
 
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