Truckle Cheese

Company name: The Truckle Cheese Co
Company description: Artisan cheese maker selling a selection of traditional and flavoured cheeses, and cheese accompaniments
Industry sector: Dairy/food

Objectives

The Truckle Cheese Co is home to the evermore famous vintage mature Cheddar truckles and a range of other farmhouse cheeses, along with award winning chutneys for cheeses, traditional pate terrines and many more new exciting products

The Truckle Cheese Co has benefited from recent dramatic growth in their wholesale market, so with this in mind, will be focusing on the export market. Supporting this – and to take advantage of the online shopping market – will be the launch of a new website for online sales. The company will also be designing and launching new products – such as the Revelation Mature Cheddar with a dark chocolate curl – to ensure the product range keeps evolving.

Event Roll Out

The Truckle Cheese Co not only use events for brand awareness, but they are also the company’s main source of income. They attend approximately 80 events every year, and have done for 15 years, as the events are a great way to meet customers face to face, communicate the products and make direct sales.

Event Strategy

Planning for Taste begins around 1 month before the event, and the dressing of the stand is all taken care of in house. Taking a 3 x 3 corner stand, 2-3 staff members work at the show, sampling and selling to the visitors to promote the company and products.

The show was promoted on the Truckle Cheese Co website to encourage customers to come to the show and meet the people behind the product, as well as sampling and buying from them.

A considerable portion of the annual marketing budget is spent on attending shows. The associated costs, such as dressing the stand, produce, staffing and accommodation, all need to be considered, but are a worthwhile investment for the visitor interaction with the products that you get at shows.

Events are combined with interactive marketing and direct mail to really emphasise the message and create relationships with customers.

Targets

The Truckle Cheese Co set sales targets for every show they attend. While they do not always reach them, the main objective is to promote the company to help increase online sales, and it is estimated that 5% of total annual sales have been influenced by attendance at Taste of Christmas.