Cheese Whiz: Middleman Delivers Fine French Imports

The storage, shipping, and regulatory issues that accompany a pungent shipment of Livarot on its circuitous course from a French producer to an American retailer are as sensitive and unpredictable as the stinky cheeses themselves. A Brooklyn native and the founder of Larkin Foods, Joe Moskowitz traffics in fine cheeses and specialty foods that are often the source of immense logistical headaches.“Food should not ride with truck tires and toilet parts,” Mr. Moskowitz said in a recent interview.Whereas FedEx manages logistics and transport by leveraging prolific economies of scale and efficient business processes, Mr. Moskowitz’s main asset is his wealth of experience in the cheese business.From the nuances of U.S. Customs to the peculiar properties of Maroille, cheese retailers say Larkin sets the industry standard in cheese sourcing, logistics, and transport.“They have been a trendsetter,” said the co-founder of the cheese sales and education firm 3D Cheese, Debra Dickerson. “I will always credit Joe with opening up the door and letting the light shine on how this process works.”Mr. Moskowitz learned the ropes at his father’s cheese business, Walker Foods, beginning in 1958. Twenty years later he founded Larkin Foods with the intention of expanding his father’s domestic operations into lucrative foreign markets. Retailers say he was the first to cut out the flabby part of the cheese importing business, allowing independent retailers to connect directly with cheese producers without the added costs and uncertainty that middleman importers and distributors impose. Rather than dealing air freight, Mr. Moskowitz’s customers appreciate the sensitive handling of their perishable products through all phases of the transportation process, at an estimated quarter of the cost.With a warehouse and staff at the largest wholesale market in Europe at Rungis, France, Mr. Moskowitz serves businesses in America, England, Mexico, and Canada interested in acquiring any volume of European cheese or specialty foods. About 10% of his business consists of high-margin products like chocolate and olive oil, and he estimates his business provides goods to about 80% of smaller importers on the East Coast.Orders destined for Larkin customers are housed in a temperature-controlled warehouse in Rungis, allowing both small and large shipments to be consolidated into 15-ton containers and eventually shipped to Larkin’s own customs-container-freight station at Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island.From there, the fragile merchandise goes out on customs bonded trucks to destinations throughout America. This explicit arrangement, common to the importing business, but not to the cheese business, speeds up otherwise unpredictable service from the Food and Drug Administration and allows Larkin customers to bypass delays that plague competitors.“Say you’re dealing with brie,” Mr. Moskowitz said, “which has a three-week shelf life, and the distributor needs only three tons a week. What is he going to do with the other six tons? He has to throw it out. Perishability is why we have a business.”In consolidating the transportation for these highly perishable cheeses, Larkin allows its clients to obtain whatever volume of product they require in a timely fashion with weekly shipments from Europe to the tune of some 400 containers per year. The value of Larkin Foods’ service has grown in lockstep with American tastes and growing markets for quality, imported foods from France, Italy, and Spain over the past few decades. Recently, Larkin Foods has capitalized on its extensive client roster and has begun to market other European specialty products, like Serrano ham and Swiss yogurt, to American companies.The largest consumption of specialty imported products is from cities that have regular international flights, according to Mr. Moskowitz. But that fluidity of transport has not come without its fair share of friction.Mr. Moskowitz does not rail against the increased restrictions on shipping that inevitably followed the attacks of September 11, 2001, but he has had to adapt his business to such contingencies.“Conformity with antiterrorism measures requires constant updating of my practices,” said Mr. Moskowitz, “but the core business is the same.”Despite the international scope and sophistication of his operation, Mr. Moskowitz maintains tight personal control over his 15-person organization.“He is very old school,” the coowner of the Cambridge, Mass., fine foods retailer Formaggio Kitchen, Ihsan Gurdal, said. “It’s an industry where there are a lot of people posing, but that doesn’t happen with Joe. The value of his service is a constant.”True to that low-key reputation, Mr. Moskowitz has never lived more than 15 miles from the hospital where he was born in Brooklyn. While his business deals in fine foods from far-flung locales, he prefers to orchestrate his complex logistics from his home in Roslyn, Long Island.Mr. Moskowitz’s son, Adam, followed his father into the business, albeit on the “sexy” retail side — if stinky cheese can be described with such a term — at Essex Formaggio in the Lower East Side’s Essex Retail Market.Describing himself as “a third generation cheesemonger,” Adam Moskowitz professed to be unaware of the extent of his father’s glowing reputation in the cheese business until entering the trade this year.“Basically,” said the younger Mr. Moskowitz, “the cheese business is like the Wizard of Oz, and Joe Moskowitz is the marvelous man behind the curtain.”

Cheese Whiz: Middleman Delivers Fine French Imports

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