The Endangered Specialty Food Retailer

Supermarkets are selling more specialty foods than ever before. Supermarkets - especially up-market stores - are encroaching on the traditional turf of the small, independent specialty foods retailer.

Of course there are flourishing specialty retailers, but the general trend for the industry is to sell more through supermarkets over time. Even in perishables like fine cheese - up-market supermarkets are coming on strong. Coffees, teas, spices, preserves, pasta, cheeses - you name it. Connoisseurs may be less than completely satisfied when shopping there - but still, more of our specialty food dollars are siphoned off in the supermarket over time. You're there, you need it, you buy it.

Convenience is extremely important to shoppers today, so specialty retailers must offer something compelling to draw customers. They are under great and constant pressure to stock unique offerings people want to maintain their differentiation. But inevitably if people want these products they will find their way into the supermarket sooner or later. And increasingly it's sooner.

Certainly the supermarket cannot compete where personal touch and "neighborhood feel" are concerned, but will that be enough? Ask the butcher, the baker, the produce man and fruiterer. Where have they gone? Outside the city - they have mostly gone the way of the dodo. And this, despite the fact that where meat, baked goods, produce and fruit are concerned - the categories involved were daily necessities and the quality and variety advantages of specialists were dramatic.

So, what's to become of specialty retail outside of urban centers? If it's true that their appeal requires an ongoing supply of distinctive (and non-trivial) products - how are they to sustain that advantage? After all, if you were a manufacturer of some wonderful new product, while you would no doubt be delighted to sell to specialty retailers, I doubt you'd be inclined to turn down a deal to sell, for example, to Whole Foods. That one deal with Whole Foods could (likely would) mean more business to you than any specialty store you serve - and perhaps more than all your other customers put together. It would be unnatural to pass on the supermarket deal.

So, there goes one more product the specialty store can't call unique in his trading zone. And so it goes. Breaking into Whole Foods - or into brokers who merchandise specialty departments in many supermarkets - has practically become synonymous with success for new specialty product companies.

Now, to be fair, the market on the whole may, in some important respects, be better served as more diverse and interesting products gain improved distribution and exposure to wider audiences through supermarkets. The old pattern in which supermarkets didn't have any of these products, and specialty retailers enjoyed a relatively safe niche, was by no means ideal. The world is better now that buying a piece of Parmesan to grate over your pasta doesn't absolutely require a special trip. And not every specialty retailer should survive. I have no problem waving goodbye to poseurs who have never provided great service to their customers or great leadership by seeking out and evangelizing wonderful new products.

But what of the good-guys (and gals) - People who really contribute to the market, their communities, and to our quality of life. How can they survive? What can we do to preserve them? I so miss the butcher, the baker, the fruit man. I am noshstalgic.

In Iceland summers, the lambs roam free

When in Iceland with Primo several years ago we saw sheep and lambs everywhere. The way it was explained to us, since the growing season in Iceland is short and winter is long, farmers must make hay while the sun shines. To get their flocks through the winter, the farmers have to save everything they can grow in the summer for winter use. So, as soon as the growing season starts, they chase all the sheep off the farms. In summer, the sheep can go anywhere they like - as long as it's not a farm.

Now in Iceland, the prevailing wild forage is a unique mix of lichen, moss, scub, wild-flowers and so on. Iceland is volcanic and the earth there is very young. Between the soil conditions and the latitude (although moderated strongly by warm ocean currents) they don't have lush pasture to graze. And the land offers some dramatic topology - it's not unusual to see steep hills rising out of otherwise flat land - and to see sheep all over the slopes (and roads, and...)

Come fall, people all over Iceland round up all the roaming sheep into long-used round-up pens surrounded by rocks as I recall. Then they sort them out and get them sent back to wherever they belong by examining ear-marks. It's not unusual for sheep to be found a hundred miles or more from home. The young lambs are numerous at this point and some go home with their mothers - but many do not. The herd is culled and the cull is sold for meat. Really good meat. Icelandic lamb is, in my opinion, a terrific product. Leaner than other lamb on the market and with a unique flavor because of their peculiar diet. And while it's not provably organic since nobody's certifying the entire island where they roam, it is a free-range product and as good as organic as far as I'm concerned. To top it off, it is generally sold at very reasonable prices - or at least it was.

In the couple of years after that trip, I would look forward to fall when the Icelandic lamb would, for a brief season, become available here in the US. At that time, it sold for reasonable prices even here at my local Whole Foods. Now I don't know this next bit for sure, but it seems to me that Whole Foods may have an exclusive on this product in the US market now. But whether that's true or not, one thing is for sure - Somewhere along the way, Icelandic lamb at Whole Foods got much more expensive. The price last year was well more than double where it started - and maybe as much as triple. Not sure if this reflects Iceland having established higher prices, Whole Foods taking advantage, or both. But one thing's clear - while still a wonderful product - Iceland lamb sure isn't free around here.