TJ Maxx killed the gourmet store?

On Sunday night I found myself lost in a TJ Maxx the suburbs. It's a long story but it involves a quid pro quo for watching the Patriots blow a game against the Colts.  As I was wandering the aisles I came across this sign.  Now it is no great mystery to me that TJ Maxx carries some food items.  I mean, who can't help but be enthralled by a store which sells first cold pres olive oils directly across from women's undergarments (I resisted taking that picture for obvious reasons).
First thing first.  TJ Maxx actually carries at least one of the same items as one of my stores.  I am not going to say which one, but I will say it is half the price I charge.  They also carry quite a few items that I have looked at for my shops but have passed on for one reason or another.

Okay, with that out of the way let's deconstruct the TJ Maxx sign.

1.  They only carry fresh gourmet food.  I am guessing that means none of their items are expired.  Well, okay, but some of their packaging looked like it had seen a few wars.  Fresh is a weird term to use to describe dried goods, but whatever.
2.  They buy in large volume directly from "our manufacturers".  So weird and awfully misleading.  Manufacturer implies that someone is making an item.  I am highly doubtful that TJ Maxx is buying the item from the actual company making the product.  Even money says their manufacturer is someone who has bought up close out products from retailers who have gone out of business or who have unloaded unsold product.
3.  Yup, they do carry the same food as some gourmet food stores at much lower prices.  But do you know what you are buying?  Is the clerk at the changing room going to be able to tell you the differences between the Spanish olive oil and the Italian one?

I guess it all comes down to the priority that you place on knowing about your food.  If price is most imporant than I am never going to win against TJ Maxx.  But if you want to make an informed decision then I suppose we're pretty good at that. 

Does this seem too obvious?  Let me explain how we run our business.  Some of the products we carry we can buy from a variety of sources.  Some are cheaper than others.  But we will always buy the product from the distributor that can help us make an informed decision for our shop--regardless of price. 

And I suppose the good news for us is that it seems highly unlikely that TJ Maxx will ever have the same product twice...

RIP Premier Cheese

The Twin Cities cheese world was abuzz yesterday with the depressing news that yet another one of our brethren has succumbed to the wiles of the economy.  This is very, very upsetting.  First E's Cheese, now Premier Cheese.

Premier Cheese is just 6 blocks away from our France 44 mothership.  Ken Liss is a passionate advocate for cheese and I've had several conversations with him about the product we share in common.  There is no doubt that Ken believes strongly about selling every one of his customers the right piece of cheese for them.

No one likes to see any small business fail.  Of course this resonates more so with me because we run the same kind of shop. 

I still maintain that I want to see more cut to order cheese shops in this town.  I know of a couple of new cheese shops in the works (remains to be seen if they will be cut to order) and I hope that they will fill the huge void left by the closing of Premier and E's.

In the meantime we will continue to do our best to educate our customers about the value of specialty shopping and provide them with great product and superb customer service.

PS:  Heavy Table was the first to report the closing of Premier.  A few readers posted comments and one of them alluded to the fact that cheese is an "upmarket" item.  This is fodder for another post and I plan to make the argument that cheese is not in fact an upmarket item.  That's right, I will posit that something I sell for as much as $38 a pound is not upmarket.  So stay tuned.