Cheesy Pleasures
Safeway taps a new niche market with Swiss fondue.
From fondues to reduced fat cheeses, retailers explore new options.
Swiss fondue? In America? It’s under the Safeway Select brand at Safeway, Pleasanton, CA, and Trader Joe’s, Monrovia, CA, also has a store brand version. Could this be a revival of a specialty popular a few decades ago?
Time will tell. But with private brands, it’s easy for retailers to exploit new or retro trends, and fondue is an example. Made with real Emmentaler and Gruyère cheeses with wine and Kirsch brandy, Safeway’s version is described ad a “Delicious Accompaniment for Bread, Fresh Vegetables and Fruit.” But the bottom line is convenience, as witness a recent post at a blog called The Kitchen by “Robin Sue:”
I recently had a fondue gathering for my girlfriends. I wanted a no fuss event, so I purchased Trader Joe’s fondue. It is in the cheese section in a vacuum sealed pouch and is very tasty. I served my fondue with apples, raw baby carrots, celery chunks, bread, two type of sausages (browned and sliced into coins), cooked tortellini, roasted rosemary fingerling potatoes, and cooked gnocchi… Have fun!
Trader Joe’s aims to be on the cutting edge when it comes to cheese. Just a few of the items that stand out in its refrigerated cases are soy cheese, goat’s milk cheddar, Greek feta in brine, mozzarella medallions and marinated mozzarella (the latter under the Trader Giotto’s brand), double crème brie, Toscano with black pepper and shredded pepper jack.
Shredded natural cheeses, by far the largest segment in private label, showed a slight decline for the first time in memory: off a tenth of a percent to $1,361 billion for the 52 weeks ended 2/21/2010, according to Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), Chicago, IL. The fastest growth was in string cheeses, up 15.8% to $191.9 million; and crumbled cheeses, up 17.7% to $33.9 billion. Natural slices showed a modest four percent gain, to $359.1 million.
Just about every kind of cheese has appeared in shredded or fancy shredded form, and the economy has favored large 32 oz packs as opposed to the traditional 8 oz and 16 oz. One variation at Weis, Sunbury, PA, is seasoned fancy shredded taco cheese, with a blend that includes salt, onion powder, paprika, garlic powder and other unnamed spices along with maltodextrin, torula yeast, citric acid and silicone dioxide [sic] – it’s really a trace amount of fine sand. Jonathan and Robert Weis sign off on the quality guarantee.
More reduced fat options include Weis parmesan-style topping and Hannaford crumbled blue cheese. Delhaize offers economy Smart Option brand American singles, but Save-A-Lot goes for quality image with Colby Farms line and Supervalu adds aged wedge cheese to Culinary Circle premium line. Stop & Shop drops its name and markets private label with its logo alone.
Delhaize Group U.S., Salisbury, NC, is tapping the economy segment with the Smart Option brand in American cheese slices. On the other hand, limited assortment retailer Save-A-Lot, Earth City, MO, is going for a classy image with its Coburn Farms brand, which stresses nutritional benefits with Smart Selections call-outs that note its cheeses are an “excellent source of calcium.” Supervalu, Eden Prairie, MN, included aged wedge cheeses in its Culinary Circle line – asiago is “aged 5 months” for a “creamy yet nutty flavor.”
Reduced fat 2% milk cheeses are an increasing presence under the Lucerne brand at Safeway; Wegmans, Rochester, NY, has gotten into the act with both shredded and sliced cheeses, such as provolone with a third less fat than regular provolone.
Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh, PA, seems to be on a brie binge, with new packaging options like mini-brie and brie wedges arranged in wheel – even a lite brie. It has also gotten into other once unfamiliar (at least in store brands) cheeses like camembert.
Topco Associates, Skokie, IL, offers 2% milk American singles under its Food Club brand. Weis has introduced a reduced fat “parmesan style” grated topping made with parmesan and romano cheeses; and Hannaford, Scarborough, ME, has come out with reduced fat versions of crumbled feta (35% less fat) and blue (25% less fat) cheeses – doubtless hoping to further stimulate an already fast-growing segment.
String cheese, of course, is being promoted as a healthy snack. Packaging for string cheese twisters from Food Lion, Salisbury, NC (like Hannaford a division of Delhaize Group U.S.) advises that each 24-gram piece “contains 15% of your recommended daily values of calcium.” Mozzarella and cheddar twists are part of the Food Club line at Topco, which also includes several variations of mozzarella sticks and a variety pack of six sticks each of regular and part skim low moisture mozzarella and cheddar sticks. The package come with a smiling cow, and the icon of the 3 A Day program promoting cheese and yogurt “for stronger bones.”
Loblaw’s, Toronto, ON, has gone an entirely different route with a Mini Chef line of flavored cheeses for children under its President’s Choice brand. Moo-Mou Fresh Cheese is available in strawberry-banana-orange, fruit punch-peach-grape and strawberry-banana-vanilla-cherryversions.
“We blended soft, creamy, fresh cheese with real fruit to create a treat that’s like a sweet, fruity pudding,” the company says at its website. “Kid approved, it’s a source of calcium, with no artificial flavours or colours.”
Topco has gotten into organic chub cream cheese under its Full Circle brand, but has gone a lot further with premium cheeses under its World Classics Trading Company brand, with everything from American yellow and white to provolone and an American, Swiss and Monterey jack blend with jalapeno peppers.
Loblaw’s is all over the map, with President’s Choice items like parmesan grated cheeses with basil and sun-dried tomato, nine-month aged shredded asiago in cups, spreadable goat cheeses in garlic & herb and peppercorn varieties, and organic mild cheddar.
Perhaps the most unfamiliar President’s Choice offering to many shoppers is semi-soft unripened Halloom, promoted thusly at the brand’s website: “A mild tasting Mediterranean-inspired cheese, Halloom can maintain its shape and resist melting, which makes it ideal for cooking and grilling. Enjoy it cubed in kebabs or salads, sliced and grilled or pan-seared in sandwiches."
