As organic production and consumer demand continues to increase in all segments alongside conventional sales, companies are engaging a variety of strategies to tap in on effective buy-side merchandising and sales. Emmi Roth has its own ideas for its offering of organic cheeses, and it involves a pointed and unique plan for the Roth brand.
As the President and Managing Director of Emmi Roth USA, Tim Omer, recently told me, the company is already enacting plans to be recognized as an organic source for consumers in the blossoming organic market.
“We saw a market opportunity for being experts or specialists in cheese, especially for organic,” Tim says of what led the company to this plan of action. “We found that for our current products and segment, there’s not a lot of people doing organics in the market right now.”
Tim says that Emmi Roth is looking to take a slightly different route with its organic offerings by simply adding the organic options to its already running line of specialty cheeses. Rather than creating a brand new line of products and merchandising for consumers, these organic additions would serve similar to the Reserve, Original, or other available versions of the cheeses. 
“We’re seeing organics currently being merchandised as its own category, but we’d like our products to remain in the specialty category to boost sales and growth in that segment,” Tim asserts of the company’s organic methodology. “We don’t really want to do what everyone else is doing, we’re looking for our organics to be an extension of our current line.”
So far, Emmi Roth has launched two organic versions of its Roth line, in its Havarti and Grand Cru cheeses, and plans to eventually add organic versions of the rest of the specialty cheese line as well.
“In the near future, we expect organics to see a healthy growth across different segments. The artisanal specialty cheese sector will also continue to grow, and we view the addition of an organic option as a natural evolution,” finishes Tim.
Tim says that the company sees a lot of opportunity in offering organics as a line extension as, he says, the organic consumer is still, and first, a cheese consumer.
As Emmi Roth USA continues to expand its line of cheeses to include organic availability, and broaden the offer of specialty cheese to the U.S. consumer, Deli Market News will have the latest updates.
