Back on May 29, 2012, Bill/SFNM wrote:
"Sometimes we wait to see how it develops unless we are certain the post is from a shill. If the poster is a shill, he/she will quickly learn that the members here are not fools and that their post can do more harm than good. Although some other moderator may delete this thread, I think there is nice form of wild-west justice to this exchange, leaving this thread here as a warning to others who might be tempted to mislead or manipulate the membership."
Where the marketing guy who started this thread screwed up is that he thought this was a pizza INDUSTRY website, rather than a ENTHUSIASTS website. We attempt to clone pizzas here. As for wild west justice, maybe we can figure out who is making, slicing, and wrapping Bacio cheese for Performance Food Group. You see, there is no bricks and mortar cheese factory with a USDA plant number on it issued to Bacio Cheese Company. I am noticing that several of the really large foodservice companies are developing over-the-top marketing strategies whose only purpose can be to "mislead or manipulate" restaurant owners and customers.
I first ran across this a year ago when a little old lady I know asked me where she could buy Rituals brand tea, supposedly turned out by the Rituals Coffee Company. Turns out it is a house brand of US Foodservice. They don't sell cash-and-carry. For some time now, I have been compiling a list of all known California cheese (particularly mozzarella) makers, trying to figure out where Shakey's is getting their cheese from. Bacio's website says their cheese is made in California's San Joaquin Valley. But I could not determine where the plant was. No D&B report is available for Bacio Cheese Company. All signs point to Performance Food Group/Vistar/Roma Foods. They don't sell cash-and-carry either. So they are fair game for amateur pizza makers!
Performance does run a slice and wrap cheese plant in Rice, Minnesota. But I strongly suspect Performance is merely buying pizza cheese from some of the biggest players in the San Joaquin Valley, such as Dairy Farmers of America, Lactalis/Mozzarella Fresca/Galbani, Leprino Foods, and Saputo. They don't seem to be content slapping just their house brand label on it anymore. Now they have to come up with fantasies of some artisan cheesemaking operation. For the mom-and-pop pizzeria owner who likes to buy quality products, he might not want to buy a brand he associates with cheap or house brand cheese. However, he might take a chance with the "Bacio Cheese Company". The other thing Bacio does not specify is the percentage of buffalo milk in their cheese. So now the ESL pizzeria owner may tell customers his pizza cheese "is made with buffalo milk". Of course, we here all know the majority of the milk came from a cow.
So, maybe we can figure out who the real manufacturer(s) of Bacio cheese is/are.
