Culture Magazine

BES T CHEESES 2024 culturecheesemag.com 11 VOICINGS Rachel Perez written by Josie Krogh Culture Magazine (CM): What was your first job in cheese? Rachel Perez (RP): My first job in cheese was at South End's Formaggio Kitchen in Boston. I worked at a bakery in the South End through college, and I had a friend who was working at Formaggio, and one day she said, "We need people at Formaggio." And my dad is French, so basically my interview at Formaggio was, "Oh, you can pronounce these cheeses? You're hired!" CM: You didn't grow up knowing a ton about cheese. But since your family is French, I imagine you had a better baseline than the average American? RP: We had cheese every night at dinner. I remember, I must have been like five, trying to explain to my dad that I liked Brie more than I liked Camembert because I thought Camembert tasted the way a farm smells. And he was like, "What are you talking about? Things don't taste the way other things smell. You're totally tripping." And I remember being really frustrated that I wasn't getting my point across properly. Years later I finally figured out that my dad actually can't taste anything, so the concept of I f you've had the pleasure of attending an American Cheese Society (ACS) conference in recent years, there's a good chance you've witnessed a dynamic presence on stage, exuberantly doling out awards, and passionately championing the value of volunteering. That energetic force is none other than Rachel Perez, ACS Director, Treasurer, and Judging and Competition (J&C) Chair Emeritus. While that may seem like a full-time job, Rachel's "real" job is Category Manager Cheese & Specialty at UNFI (United Natural Foods, Inc.). She found some time in her incredibly busy schedule to talk to us about her winding career path, how she's seen ACS change over the past decade, and what it is about the cheese industry that keeps her around. This interview has been edited for length. that was totally lost on him. And sure enough, things certainly do taste like other things smell. CM: Right. And barnyard is a very common note we get in cheese. So, the fact that you were able to ID that as a young person, it's pretty obvious you were destined to have a career in cheese. RP: It validated my young palate for sure. CM: Do you have a favorite cheese memory? RP: I go to France every year and used to go to my grandma's house. I have this picture of my grandmother eating Vacherin Mont d'Or. It's a picture of her holding the box, and you can see Mont d'Or at the top and a spoon in her mouth. My favorite memory is when I took that picture and she said, "My favorite part of the cheese is 'gratter à côté de la croûte.'" [Which means] to scratch the cheese that's right next to the rind. So, I have an actual picture of her with a spoon in her mouth right after she scratched the rind of the Mont d'Or. CM: Back to Formaggio, where did you go after that? RP: I nicked my finger a couple times on the meat slicer and thought health insurance was probably a really good thing to have. So I ended up working at Whole Foods—the big one in Cambridge with beer and wine—for a couple of years, then I got the opportunity to go to London and build Whole Foods from the ground up. The store was not successful, but you learn a lot more working for an unsuccessful store than you do working for a successful store because you can't really mask anything. CM: How has working in different areas of the industry shaped your perspective of the industry as a whole, because you've been able to see it from so many different angles? RP: I always try to approach things as win- win partnerships. So now, as a distributor, I don't want to set either a retailer or a manufacturer up to fail. It's [about] aligning all three perspectives, so if I can bring something in as a distributor that is beneficial to a producer and a retailer, that's the magic trifecta. And that's the lens I try to approach decision making with. I always think that transparency across the board is the best way to approach things. One thing I have learned about myself is that I love a massive corporation. Which, you know, sort of

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