Wholesale Handler
The make date sets the order book
Most trades sell what they can make this week. A creamery sells what it made months ago, and no order changes that.
Fresh cheeses are ready in days to a month, short-aged styles in one to two months, medium-aged in two to nine, and long-aged styles need nine months as a floor, with Parmesan-style wheels running one to two years. In the USA a raw milk batch has a legal floor on top: FDA standards of identity permit unpasteurised milk where the process includes an aging period, typically not less than 60 days at not less than 35°F, and no raw cheese younger than that can cross a state line in final package form.
Milk supply narrows it again. Goat milk is available roughly March through December and sheep milk roughly April through September, because both animals breed on shortening autumn days and go dry over winter. Early-lactation milk is richer in fat and protein than peak milk, so two batches of the same cheese made four months apart are not the same cheese.
The order form is a picture of the maturing room, not of the catalogue.
Setting the ordering week
Published deadlines in cheese vary by a factor of seven, and the variable is cutting and packing labour rather than distance. Counter Cheesemongers in South Carolina asks at least 24 hours' notice for local delivery. Carr Valley in Wisconsin asks a seven-day lead time on every wholesale order, because everything is cut to order.
The round has four fixed points: the list goes out, orders close, cheese is cut and packed, the van leaves. Twenty or thirty accounts on different delivery days run several of those at once, which is what an order profile holds in Wholesale Handler - delivery days, the cutoff, a maximum lead time, delivery charge and minimum spend, assigned per customer. The cutoff can be set once for the profile or vary per delivery day, so a Thursday van closes Tuesday evening while a shipped account closes the Friday before. How to stop wholesale customers ordering after the cutoff covers the late order.
Minimums are set by format as often as by money. FireFly Farms puts a $200 minimum on direct creamery shipments, Gourmet Wholesaler a $300 minimum, and Rogue Creamery a single box or one 5 lb wheel, with all orders placed in even box or case increments. Set and enforce a minimum order value in wholesale covers the money floor.
Whole wheels and cut portions need separate order lines
Suppliers who publish their formats list three: bulk wheels, random weight retail cuts, and exact weight retail pieces. One order line cannot carry all three.
A whole wheel keeps developing after it leaves you. A monger holding it at temperature and humidity can clean the rind and re-wrap it as they cut into it. An exact-weight wedge carries a longer stated shelf life than a counter cut only because the packaging is doing the work the rind used to. Wheels cut in house also carry the better margin for the buyer, one distributor putting it at 50 to 75 per cent against 30 to 40 on pre-packed.
Cut-to-order removes the whole-wheel commitment and moves the labour. Counter Cheesemongers cuts to order so a buyer takes whatever poundage they can move, small formats excepted, and states that portioning, packaging and labelling happen at the buyer's end. That division belongs on the price list, because a monger with a cutting bench and a restaurant without one read the same line differently.
Ordering by weight against ordering by piece
Murray's wholesale runs both units on one catalogue: most cheeses are cut and sold by the pound with a 1 lb minimum, and smaller format cheeses are sold by the each. A creamery with a 5 lb tomme, a 200 g crottin and a 40 lb clothbound wheel needs the same split.
Between the two sits the case the trade calls catch weight. The buyer orders a count, three half-wheels or two cases, but the price is per pound and the exact weight is not known until the piece is on the scale. Wholesale Handler carries all three modes per product. Per unit is a flat price for each piece, box or case. By weight lets a customer order an exact weight at a per-kg or per-lb rate. Catch weight is counted in pieces and billed on the weight measured at pick: the order form shows a typical price from a typical weight when the order goes in, then settles to the weighed amount, which reaches the invoice as a line reading 5.1 kg at $4.00/kg.
Publishing the maturing stock list
The weekly list is the product. Counter Cheesemongers sends an inventory price list every Monday by email, carrying new and seasonal arrivals and notes on particular batches, plus a sell sheet with each new cheese covering the maker, milk type, age and breed. An ordering portal takes that job over, showing each cheese as orderable or not at the moment the buyer looks at it.
A recurring season set once on a product repeats every year, and out of season the cheese stays on the order form with the date it returns, which matches a spring goat cheese landing in the same weeks each year. Optional stock quantity tracking covers the batch that is a fixed number of wheels. Manage seasonal availability in wholesale produce covers the seasonal mechanism in full.
Holding orders when a batch is not ready
Grading is a judgement, and specifications assume it will sometimes go against the batch. Emmentaler AOP is graded after four months and needs 18 points out of 20 to be approved for sale. A Saint-Nectaire affinage is cut short where the flavour and scent are not developing as they should.
Pull the cheese before orders open rather than after they close. An availability window in Wholesale Handler takes a reason tag - limited stock, weather delay, discontinued, or other - alongside a customer-facing note, and can be left open-ended as "until further notice". The product stays visible with the note attached, and a buyer can ask to be emailed the moment it is orderable again. Accounts on a repeating weekly delivery can pause until a chosen resume date, skip one occurrence, or update quantities. What is a standing order in wholesale covers the cadence and the pause.
What the order round does not decide
Wholesale Handler holds no recipes, no milk intake, no vat or make schedule, and no lot traceability. Its production schedule consolidates what customers have ordered, so it says what to cut and pack this week, not what to make for the season after next. Deciding a wheel is ready stays with whoever tastes it.
What it covers is the round: the list, the deadline, the price per account, the packing slip and the invoice, at a flat monthly fee with no per-order fee and no commission on order value. Features is the full list.
