“Telling the Story”

In recent months and years, travel programmes, an endless diet of cookery programmes and local and national farming programmes have given great exposure to British cheese, and a few Continentals too.

The question: could the individual maker do more to give themselves higher exposure? The answer: of course they can. Marketing oneself is an everyday task, and if done it’s best done well and regularly.

Going back 20 years, a lot of the exposure on artisan and speciality cheese types was done by the distributors, including Bradbury’s, Rowcliffe’s and Cheese Cellar, often bringing the products to market.  Beyond that, a vast array of great retailers – too many to reference – gave great local exposure to both classic and innovative types that brought both consumer and media recognition.

Certainly on an international scale, Neal’s Yard became a real beacon for media recognition of artisan cheese and great mutual benefit accrued to all stakeholders.

Many of the makers have taken on the challenge of creating their own identity, largely using the internet, with varying degrees of professionalism, and a few have used it as a route to market, which is a fairly logical approach, especially where there is a high dependency on farmers’ market sales.

Mediums such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook have allowed the consumer greater access to small artisan businesses and a level of interaction with the makers themselves which has been unparalleled.

Probably the most polished of these communications is that of Mary Quicke and her Dairy Diary, which is without doubt an unrivalled piece of stylish marketing that few if anyone could match for both eloquence and country feel. It’s magical.

There are some conflict lines that hinder this all-out marketing drive, and they largely centre around the varying strands of routes to market.

Many makers have a mixed economy of customers, including direct independent retail, catering, wholesale distribution, export and major retail, and this uneasy cocktail of differing approaches can obscure action that might be perceived as favouring one sector over another.

In essence, some sectors provide a better income margin while others provide volume, and it’s this delicate balance that many makers try to strike. It’s this which often keeps them lower profile than they could be, maintaining dependency on a key number of customers.

There are non-conflicting approaches that most makers could and should use. Addressing the consumer and media directly is not in conflict with serving their distributive accounts, indeed doing so may well contribute substantially.

The consumer is thirsting for knowledge about artisan cheese, not just for the history and flowery words of luscious pastures and herby tastes, but simply what to use it for. It’s often as simple as that. A James Martin recipe on Lincolnshire Poacher clears shelves within hours; do we need more evidence?

Use serving suggestions as a marketing tool, and serve complementary products like wine, cider and even gin to make it more modern and relevant. E-commerce may well be regarded by some as being in conflict with the established distributive channels, but it’s here, it’s now, and it’s growing. A fixed weight option there would open the doors to a high income, complementary market to reach those areas others can’t.

Telling the story is fine on the web, but some clever printed material incorporating, say, a unique recipe sent via post or online will keep a brand in eyeline. It does not need to be expensive, but it is necessary to think about how one wishes to be seen – traditional, modern, creative – as you are what you appear, and I have always thought a good label design and a consistent style is never money wasted. This is brand value, it’s what the media likes, and there’s room for all.

Great British artisan cheesemakers are often modest in the extreme, resist projecting themselves except when necessity drives, and thus take slightly longer than necessary to obtain the overnight success they deserve.

All in this trade know, or should know, how hard artisan cheesemaking is and that you don’t get everything first time you ask. Keep on asking, keep on telling, keep on selling.