MILLINGTON, N.J. — Whether it's domestic or imported, whether it's a cheese or some other perishable specialty food typically found in the perimeter of the grocery or specialty store, as long as it's a value-added, high-quality product, Ron Schinbeckler believes there is always a way to enhance a product's market presence.

Schinbeckler is the president of Fromartharie Inc., a manufacturer's representative whose objective is to optimize the business of a selected group of value-added specialty food companies. He and his wife, Martha, began operating the company in its current form in 1991 after Schinbeckler spent 14 years with Groupe Bongrain and 4 1/2 years with Proctor & Gamble's food division. Prior to that, Fromartharie was a side business for Schinbeckler, who held some cheese import licenses. The company's name was created by combining his wife's name with fromagerie, the French word for a cheese plant.

The company's roots are in cheese as that is where the bulk of Schinbeckler's pre-Fromartharie experience lies. However, early on, the company expanded its offerings to include other perishable items that pair well with cheese. His current clients include goat cheese maker Woolwich Dairy (also the North American agent for France's Triballat goat cheeses), Agropur's soft ripened cheese and Oka, Cadi Cooperativa (Catalonia cow's milk Spanish cheeses and cultured butter), Gerhard's Napa Valley Gourmet Sausages, Charcuterie la Tour Eiffel pates, Busseto Specialty Meats, Daniel Dessaint Authentic French Crepes, DeJong/Jana Foods Holland specialty cheeses, Madrange French hams, Garcia Baquero Spanish cheeses, Monti Trentini Italian cheeses and Cady Creek Farms of Wisconsin.

As a manufacturer's rep, Fromartharie's focus is on working with producers to develop a plan to effectively communicate product benefits to the consumer to build sales and enhance the manufacturer's bottom line.

"We work with producers on a strategic plan and find out who's there in the market and what's driving the category," Schinbeckler says. "Then we look at how we enhance the label so that it works hard to communicate with the consumer and encourage a purchase. Then we develop fact sheets, price lists, POS, etc. We can really help them pioneer their product, and not a lot of people like to do that today."

Sometimes that also means helping manufacturers develop new products to fill an as-yet-unmet market niche.

Schinbeckler loves to see innovation and particularly applauds the efforts of Woolwich Dairy in that area. One of his favorite new products is Woolwich's Madame Chevre Elite, which is Chevre layered with gourmet toppings such as cranberries with port wine or roasted red peppers.

"It's a very innovative product for entertaining," he says.

Sometimes Fromartharie's involvement in a client company also includes a financial interest or a position on the board of directors. The company works with both small, emerging firms that don't have their own sales staff as well as supplements larger companies' sales and marketing networks.

In addition to the company's new headquarters and office staff located in Millington, N.J., Fromartharie has five regional sales managers across the United States. It also has two merchandising specialists. Schinbeckler says that by strategically locating these personnel, the company is able to work with brokers and supermarket and specialty store distributors around the country and help them drive the business, increasing both distribution and volume.

Fromartharie's staff works hard to develop programs that meet the needs of retailers, too, Schinbeckler continues. For example, the company has created a "Running of the Bulls" promotion for July to give retailers an event to promote Spanish cheeses and meats around.

"During non-fourth quarter periods, you need some kind of event to drive consumer purchasing," says Schinbeckler, who was instrumental in developing the "April in Paris" promotion and the Alouette brand of soft-flavored cheeses in the late 1970s and early 1980s while at Bongrain.

For the retailers it works with, Fromartharie holds training sessions on Spanish cheeses highlighted during the "Running of the Bulls" promotion, he adds. The promotion also features recipe books, signage and other marketing tie-ins and allows the company to jointly promote a number of its Spanish products, he says.

One of the beauties of Fromartharie featuring multiple products is that the products complement each other in the midst of promotional activity, Schinbeckler says. The company can build synergies between items from a certain region of the world and enhance all of their sales, he says.

Over the years, Fromartharie has gained the majority of its clientele through word-of-mouth. The company doesn't advertise itself much but expends most of its efforts on promoting its clients' products.

Typically, Fromartharie doesn't seek out clients. Instead, manufacturers come to Fromartharie after they've seen the presence of the company's clients in stores, Schinbeckler says, noting that Fromartharie over the past 10 years played a role in building the presence of Tillamook, Sonoma and Cantare cheeses throughout the United States. Companies come to Fromartharie for a variety of reasons, such as the desire to shift from a commodity operation with low margins to a higher-margin specialty operation or a desire to build their market share beyond their current base. For companies that don't want to commit the time and expense of having staff on the road constantly, Fromartharie may be the solution, Schinbeckler says. While Fromartharie can't commit all of its time and effort to a manufacturer's single product, it can streamline many of the steps needed to get the product into buyers' hands as well as build on synergies that can be developed with other clients. This saves on overhead and the precious commodity of time, he says. It also helps attract better brokers since dealing with one regional manager for multiple product lines makes it more efficient for them, he adds.

In addition, because Fromartharie works with so many companies, it can help companies with other necessary business functions such as logistics. For example, Fromartharie recently helped one of its clients find a less expensive trucking service.

Fromartharie also is doing some streamlining of its own. Schinbeckler says that the company's new office space in Millington, N.J., will make the company more efficient and allow for future growth. The company is developing its own brands as well, Schinbeckler says. Fromartharie owns the Mont Royal name, whose predominant product has been rBST-free Canadian Brie. Now, Mont Royal aged Canadian Cheddar is in the process of being launched. Other cheeses under that brand name also may follow, Schinbeckler says. Right now the brand is available only in the United States, although the company is expanding sales of its products into Mexico.

Fromartharie also has trademarked the brand name of Solera, positioned for Spanish specialty foods, and is in the process of trademarking Italian and French-positioned cheese brands as well. The company will selectively introduce its own brands when the time is right, he says.

While most of Fromartharie's current cheese clientele resides outside of the United States, Schinbeckler also says he is talking with artisan cheese producers in Wisconsin and California. Though most specialty cheeses are still produced outside the United States — hence the company's large list of imported cheeses that it represents — Schinbeckler notes that the whole specialty cheese category has grown in the United States and that he expects the category and his company's representation of these cheeses will continue to grow.

CMN