October 15, 2007
Milking it | A chat with Jill Dutton, co-founder of The Cheese Iron in Scarborough.
A chat with Jill Dutton, co-founder of The Cheese Iron in Scarborough
Founded: August 2006
Employees: Dutton, her husband, Vince Maniaci, and three full-time workers
Startup costs: $165,000
Revenue, year one: $750,000
Projected revenue, year two: $890,000
Contact: 883-4057
200 U.S. Route One, Scarborough 04074
www.thecheeseiron.com
Tell me about what you sell here.
People think that we're just cheese, but we have all these other great specialty deli meats sliced by hand and we have high-end pantry items. We have wine, fresh baked bread. In the summer we have fresh produce. Cheese was going to be the focus, to have artisan cheeses from all over the world that we cut to order ˆ we have about 200 kinds ˆ but we wanted to have more items, too, to bring people in.
Is shipping complicated, since you're getting cheese from various countries?
Well, we have distributors and they have refrigerated trucks. Because cheese ages, it's okay if it's in a truck as long as it's in a cold environment. The cheeses are always well taken care of, and then we put them in our cheese cave and they ripen in there.
What is a cheese cave?
It's a way of professionally caring for your cheeses. With the amount of cheeses that we're bringing in, a lot of times when you get your cheeses from the distributors, they're not necessarily ready yet. So by having the cheese cave we're able to preserve the cheese until it tastes right. Pretty much it's a highly insulated room that can stand high humidity and low temperature.
How did you prepare to open the store?
Vince and I met about 10 years ago and he was opening up a store on Nantucket, Mass., that was a cheese store. And he's been with cheese for about 15 years. When I met him I didn't know anything about cheese, but I loved it. Throughout the time we've been together, I've learned a lot, but I don't have any formal training in food. My training is in marketing and design.
We always had this idea that we'd like to open our own store, but we knew we weren't ready yet. So we each went off and gained experience, with the idea that someday we would use our experience to open a store.
How did you choose the location?
We came from Austin, but we wanted to come back to the East Coast because I have family up here. We were looking for a coastal city, and we wanted to be in a city where there was an upcoming food scene. And why Scarborough? We did a lot of research and Scarborough is a hugely developing city and it's really close to the highway. We're easy to get to. In Portland, there are several stores that we would compete with.
But there are other specialty food stores in the area. How do you attract people to your shop?
I think it's our customer service and our knowledge [of the products]. We spent a lot of money on getting really good staff that have experience. We have two chefs here. We have a woman who used to own her own specialty food store. Salary is probably one of our highest overhead [expenses]. We wanted to offer a very competitive wage, instead of having a lot of staff and having them paid not as well.
How did you get startup funding?
We approached many banks. But people say that our business plan was great. Our experience helped. And we had a nice down payment that we had collected over the years that we could put toward [the business]. Plus, I think it was timing. We walked into Bangor Savings [Bank] and they happened to be opening this branch [in Scarborough] about six months after we opened and I think they thought of us as a good opportunity. They gave us a really competitive loan that was backed by the [Small Business Administration].
How do you market the business?
We can only do so much because we are so new. When people ask us to donate [to fundraisers], we try to do as much as we can. That's been really good P.R. for us. This year I'll be donating to different organizations than I did last year to get the name out in different areas.
We have a huge discount for chefs that come in, so we're getting our name out that way. We try to do what we can, but we also have a three-year-old at home. I would say family comes first, but the business is our baby.
New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to editorial@mainebiz.biz.
Founded: August 2006
Employees: Dutton, her husband, Vince Maniaci, and three full-time workers
Startup costs: $165,000
Revenue, year one: $750,000
Projected revenue, year two: $890,000
Contact: 883-4057
200 U.S. Route One, Scarborough 04074
www.thecheeseiron.com
Tell me about what you sell here.
People think that we're just cheese, but we have all these other great specialty deli meats sliced by hand and we have high-end pantry items. We have wine, fresh baked bread. In the summer we have fresh produce. Cheese was going to be the focus, to have artisan cheeses from all over the world that we cut to order ˆ we have about 200 kinds ˆ but we wanted to have more items, too, to bring people in.
Is shipping complicated, since you're getting cheese from various countries?
Well, we have distributors and they have refrigerated trucks. Because cheese ages, it's okay if it's in a truck as long as it's in a cold environment. The cheeses are always well taken care of, and then we put them in our cheese cave and they ripen in there.
What is a cheese cave?
It's a way of professionally caring for your cheeses. With the amount of cheeses that we're bringing in, a lot of times when you get your cheeses from the distributors, they're not necessarily ready yet. So by having the cheese cave we're able to preserve the cheese until it tastes right. Pretty much it's a highly insulated room that can stand high humidity and low temperature.
How did you prepare to open the store?
Vince and I met about 10 years ago and he was opening up a store on Nantucket, Mass., that was a cheese store. And he's been with cheese for about 15 years. When I met him I didn't know anything about cheese, but I loved it. Throughout the time we've been together, I've learned a lot, but I don't have any formal training in food. My training is in marketing and design.
We always had this idea that we'd like to open our own store, but we knew we weren't ready yet. So we each went off and gained experience, with the idea that someday we would use our experience to open a store.
How did you choose the location?
We came from Austin, but we wanted to come back to the East Coast because I have family up here. We were looking for a coastal city, and we wanted to be in a city where there was an upcoming food scene. And why Scarborough? We did a lot of research and Scarborough is a hugely developing city and it's really close to the highway. We're easy to get to. In Portland, there are several stores that we would compete with.
But there are other specialty food stores in the area. How do you attract people to your shop?
I think it's our customer service and our knowledge [of the products]. We spent a lot of money on getting really good staff that have experience. We have two chefs here. We have a woman who used to own her own specialty food store. Salary is probably one of our highest overhead [expenses]. We wanted to offer a very competitive wage, instead of having a lot of staff and having them paid not as well.
How did you get startup funding?
We approached many banks. But people say that our business plan was great. Our experience helped. And we had a nice down payment that we had collected over the years that we could put toward [the business]. Plus, I think it was timing. We walked into Bangor Savings [Bank] and they happened to be opening this branch [in Scarborough] about six months after we opened and I think they thought of us as a good opportunity. They gave us a really competitive loan that was backed by the [Small Business Administration].
How do you market the business?
We can only do so much because we are so new. When people ask us to donate [to fundraisers], we try to do as much as we can. That's been really good P.R. for us. This year I'll be donating to different organizations than I did last year to get the name out in different areas.
We have a huge discount for chefs that come in, so we're getting our name out that way. We try to do what we can, but we also have a three-year-old at home. I would say family comes first, but the business is our baby.
New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to editorial@mainebiz.biz.
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