BENICIA, Calif. — Quietly growing and innovating, Mozzarella Fresca, once a tiny fresh Mozzarella cheesemaker on the West Coast, is blossoming into a company with distribution that company President Andrew Branagh hopes will become truly national very soon.

"We want to change the world" — or at least the world of fresh Mozzarella, Branagh says.

Branagh and his team already are making great strides toward that goal.

Mozzarella Fresca was a small, struggling company when Branagh and his business partner David Wignall invested in it in 1995 — only to have undisclosed business practices quickly push the company into the throes of bankruptcy. Forced to either lose everything they'd invested or make the business work, Branagh says he and Wignall chose the latter and "jumped into this with both feet."

In order to appease creditors and get the plant back on track, the first order of business was focusing on quality cheese production and marketing, explains Branagh, who says it was ambition combined with a love of good food that caused him to get into the cheese business in the first place.

The purchase of the Gardena plant was a critical step for Mozzarella Fresca. Though still a small plant, the new facility was 10 times the size of the one the company had outgrown and the "team" — Branagh says the company is very team-oriented in its goals — began concentrating even more on gaining market share by meeting the demands of discerning consumers.

"If I had to summarize our company, I'd say we work as a family where the head of the household is the customer," says Edward DeBartolo, vice president, sales and marketing.

To gain further efficiencies, they closed the plant in Benicia, although company headquarters remain there. The company also purchased Cascade Mozzarella in Washington state in 1999 and closed the facility but retained that company's customers.

Recently, the company made another purchase. Teaming up with Cheese Merchants of America, Mozzarella Fresca has purchased the Salamone Latticini fresh Mozzarella plant in Carol Stream, Ill. There are no plans to close this plant, according to DeBartolo.

Having a plant in the Midwest, so close to Chicago, will give Mozzarella Fresca better inroads to both the Midwest and the East Coast markets, DeBartolo says. The company also has plans to one day purchase another plant on the East Coast so that it can provide the freshest possible product to its East Coast customers who currently make up only a tiny percentage of the company's overall sales.

"What makes a fresh product is timely delivery," DeBartolo says of the company's desire to have processing facilities near its customers.

In the midst of all this, the company also has undertaken creating a variety of new products. In addition to fresh Mozzarella — both the traditional water-packed variety as well as a Cryovac-style with a longer shelf-life — the company also manufactures smoked varieties of Mozzarella, fresh Ricotta and Mascarpone. A tiramisu-flavored Mascarpone is one of the latest cheeses to join the company's lineup, as it gives consumers an opportunity to take steps out of making desserts, DeBartolo says.

The company is continually looking for ways to help make things easier in the consumer's kitchen while at the same time catering to a growing interest among consumers to be more involved in making their food.

In 1999, the company began doing some research and development work on home meal replacement items, which led the company to introduce its gourmet antipasto salads.

The first salad kit consisted of fresh 1/3-ounce Mozzarella balls called Ciliegine and oven-roasted tomatoes packed separately inside an instant salad kit package.

"The consumer really took to it," says DeBartolo, noting that a variation of the kit called Insalata Carciofio (fresh Mozzarella, marinated artichokes and roasted tomatoes) won first place in the International Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association's annual new products in 2000.

The company now offers the antipasto salads with Mozzarella and different combinations of marinated roasted red peppers, oven-roasted tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts and Calamata olives. They are sold under the ItalCheese label in both retail and larger foodservice sizes for restaurants, delis and caterers.

Another item the company is introducing is a fresh curd product for home consumers who want try their hand at making their own fresh Mozzarella.

With the growing popularity of cooking shows, DeBartolo says the company was receiving up to a dozen calls a week from consumers wanting to know if the company had fresh curd for sale so they could make their own cheese. The company saw it as a call to action.

"We've created a retail-friendly curd which comes with instructions and a link to our website on how to make fresh Mozzarella," DeBartolo says, explaining that the product also will contain a CD/DVD on curd stretching at home as a gift with the purchase of the product.

Paul Hatfield, executive chef, Mozzarella Fresca, describes the CD/DVD as a 12-minute cooking show, featuring him showcasing how to make standard balls and braids.

"Releasing curd to the public will take some training for them, and we're prepared to do that," Hatfield says.

"It's taking home gourmet cooking to a new level," DeBartolo adds.

In finding out what consumers want, DeBartolo says the best focus groups are customers at food shows where the company both tries out new ideas and hears about new products for which customers are looking.

The company relies heavily on Hatfield, who joined the company a little more than a year ago.

"Executive chefs can understand the needs of foodservice and the home chef," Hatfield says of his position.

"When it comes to foodservice, there's no better person to talk to a chef than a chef," DeBartolo adds. About 44 percent of the company's annual sales is in foodservice, with the rest from retail.

To generate interest in the company's cheese, Hatfield has appeared on the "Evening Magazine" television show in San Francisco as well as "The Short Cut Cook" television show. In addition, he responds personally to consumer e-mails and telephone calls, e-mailing them recipes as needed.

"It's guerilla marketing," Hatfield says.

The company's products also are featured in cooking periodicals and in point-of-sale materials designed to both generate additional exposure for the company's products and educate the consumer. Even in the packaging of its antipasto salads the company attempts to educate the consumer with serving and recipe suggestions.

Mozzarella Fresca management also believes in educating themselves, and the company has teamed up with the Italian company Pomella to trade staff members back and forth occasionally so that they can learn from one another. Doing so gives Mozzarella Fresca cheesemakers the opportunity to learn firsthand the traditions of cheesemaking in Italy while giving Pomella employees the opportunities to learn about HACCP and other quality assurance programs Mozzarella Fresca has in place, DeBartolo says. To round out its product line, Mozzarella Fresca also carries Pomella's imported Italian Bufala Mozzarella, under a joint label — Ital Fresca.

The company continues to broaden its product line with other products as well. As part of the partnership with Cheese Merchants of America, Mozzarella Fresca will be carrying some of Cheese Merchants' hard Italian cheeses. Cheese Merchants of America also will be carrying some Mozzarella Fresca items, giving them additional exposure.

In addition, organic products are joining Mozzarella Fresca's product lineup. This past June, the company began work on its first organic cheeses. The company's just now received its first orders and is getting to roll the products out, DeBartolo says.

Besides its own branded products, Mozzarella Fresca manufactures products for a number of other branded customers. DeBartolo says the company takes pride in working with different customers and being flexible enough to meet their needs.

"We excel at what we like to do, and we have fun doing it," Branagh adds.

CMN