Fine Cheese & Charcuterie January 2013

Hello, 2013! I hope everyone had a joy- ous and successful holiday season, and that every item that is even remotely holi- day-related has been sold and is gone from your shelves. I made a commitment again this holiday season to shop local and to focus on independent specialty shops for my gift buying. Some of the local retailers I patronized seemed to be struggling while others were busy and ringing up sales. As a consequence, I spent more at the less busy stores to help them out, but it made me think about why some were busy and others not. Location, of course, is always important, but that didn’t seem to be the reason they weren’t doing business. Product selection, merchandising and staff training were, I believe, the main stumbling blocks for some of these stores. Fortunately, those are all issues that we focus on in both this magazine and our sister publication, Gourmet Business.

I’m excited to be entering our third year of publishing Fine Cheese & Charcuterie. We have some great things planned for the coming year, and we’re kicking the year off with a couple of new features that I hope you’ll enjoy.  First, since many of you will be heading to San Francisco for the Winter Fancy Food Show, and assuming that, like me, you like to look at other shops when you travel, I’ve compiled a list of great retail- ers in the city and beyond that I would recommend for you to see, page 10. One of those places is the Ferry Building Marketplace on the waterfront at the end of Market Street, a fabulous collection of shops that I consider a must-see when you’re in the city. Second, as an accompaniment to my list, we’re very excited to present our first video tour. Join me as I take you through the Marketplace and visit a couple of shops that I’m sure you’ll find interesting. One of the advantages of our digital format is that we’re not restricted to conventional magazine reporting (anyone who has read my sto- ries already knows that’s true!). We plan on doing more videos in the future on everything from store visits to product demonstrations and staff training.

We’re also presenting a preview for Fancy Food Show visitors of some of the products and companies you might want to watch for at the show, page 15. It’s an eclectic mix of foods, all of which are categories seen in cheese and charcuterie stores and departments these days. We have a companion pre- view in Gourmet Business this month with more great products, and we’ve included booth numbers in both to make your search easier. In our feature article this month, page 7, we’ll look at how some retailers are getting more efficient and, in the process, cutting costs; and we’ll take on a big slice of one of the world’s greatest hams in “Passport to the Deli,” page 5. We hope to see many of you at the Fan- cy Food Show this month, the premier West Coast event, to see what’s new in the world of gourmet foods, to meet and greet the food cognoscenti, and place orders for the coming year. We’ll be there with our whole crew – our booth is 3200 – and we’ll be walking the aisles looking for new and exciting products, and saying hello to friends old and new. I look forward to seeing you all there. Happy New Year.

James Mellgren

Managing Editor,

Fine Cheese & Charcuterie

jmellgren@gourmetbusiness.com