Price Chopper Makes Clerks' Fontina Cheese of the Week

ROSEANNE HARPER

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. — Price Chopper Supermarkets here put Mezza Luna Fontina, handmade by three of its cheese clerks, in the spotlight during Christmas week last month.

The cheese got top billing in the 116-unit chain's ad circular with a quarter-page block featuring a photograph of front-line specialty cheese clerks Jill Petitti, Kathleen Linehan and Stephanie Carnevale with the cheese they made from start to finish while on a recent tour of artisan cheese operations in Wisconsin. The cheese was featured at $9.99 per pound.

The fontina ad, part of a full-page ad for the chain's specialty cheese shops, read, “We Traveled to Wisconsin to Make Mezza Luna!” Then there's a brief description of how the trip came about and what the participants learned there.

Price Chopper laminated the ads and posted them at each of its full-service, specialty cheese shops. There, associates had the opportunity to interact with customers, telling them about the cheese itself and their cheese-making experience.

“Talking to customers about it is great — really cool,” Petitti told SN shortly after Christmas.

“We have the laminated ad right there beside us as we offer them tastes. Sales are good, and people are asking a lot of questions.”

Petitti said customers asked for details about how the cheese was made, and how she was involved. They've also wanted to know how fontina is best used. She said she tells them a little about the cheese tour and then goes on to offer suggestions on how to use the cheese.

“It's good on crackers, but we also tell them how nicely it melts, that it's great in a lot of recipes.” Petitti's own favorite way to use the Mezza Luna Fontina is in scrambled eggs.

While clerks at each of the specialty cheese shops offered up the handmade fontina on a variety of crackers, the public address system announced every 20 minutes what was going on in the cheese shops. Customer traffic was constant, Petitti said.

“Sometimes we were so busy we didn't even have time to talk to customers. They were tasting the cheese and buying it.”

The quarter-page ad for the clerk-made Mezza Luna was part of a full-page ad touting the chain's growing number of staffed, specialty cheese shops. In addition to the Mezza Luna Fontina, 14 different cheeses — ranging from French Port Salut and Switzerland Gruyere — were pictured with flavor descriptions and serving suggestions.

Price Chopper's cheese-making trio, accompanied by some Price Chopper officials — including cheese specialist/merchandiser Michel Bray and deli director Tim Fink — toured Wisconsin cheese operations in October to get some hands-on experience with artisan cheese and the people who make it.

The four-day tour was organized by Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Madison, and WMMB officials escorted the group on a round of visits from Madison to Green Bay and back, to see how production and aging were handled at different facilities.

It was at a Roth Kase facility in Monroe that Petitti and her colleagues got the opportunity to actually make a vat of cheese. Even as the clerks got garbed up and ready for the challenge in front of them, Michel Bray had in mind to buy the finished product and make it a Price Chopper featured Cheese of the Week.

From 5 in the morning until around noon, the Price Chopper team, which also included Bray and Fink, worked every phase of the process, right up to the aging room.

“Then we bought the vat,” Bray told SN. “We knew it had to age and would be ready just about in time for Christmas.” And, indeed, it was.