Italian food supplier, Salt Meats Cheese, is looking to secure a permanent site in Sydney’s MLC Centre following the launch of its pop up shop. Opened earlier this month, the pop up is on the ground floor of the CBD centre. Salt Meat Cheese co-founders, Edoardo Perlo and Stefano de Blas, launched the company in 2011 as a wholesale importing business of specialty products. A year later Salt Meats Cheese created a retail division within its 700sqm Alexandria-based warehouse, with Perlo dubbing t
he model an “Italian version of Costco”.
“We opened the doors to the public one Sunday, we were just curious to see who would come in, and that’s how [the retail division started],” Perlo told Inside Retail PREMIUM.
Based on the theme of an ‘Italian picnic’ the pop up stocks Salt Meats Cheese’s own products, including pasta sauces, marinated olives, buffalo mozzarella, and truffle salt.
“The warehouse is 700sqm so it’s quite a big area, whereas the pop up is around 65sqm. We obviously can’t showcase the whole range so we’ve selected the best items.”
Perlo says the pop up is a way for Salt Meats Cheese to test its reception in the city, with it more than likely to become a permanent site.
“We wanted to see what the reaction would like from the demographic without compromising the brand.”
Salt Meats Cheese is planning to open other store formats, including a takeaway deli.
“Most of our trade comes from selling takeaway goods, so we’d like to open a takeaway deli – an Italian version of what you see in Australia.”
He hopes the business will be able to recreate traffic lost at MLC Centre due to Westfield Sydney.
“MLC was one of the busiest buildings in the CBD, but it has suffered by having the Westfield next to it where there are lots of strong operators.
“Opening in a Westfield is not really in our plans, we don’t want to go where everyone else is. Our flagship in Alexandria is an independent complex and it grew organically because the community really supported it.”
Salt Meats Cheese told Inside Retail PREMIUM it will “100 per cent” launch the brand interstate, earmarking South Yarra in Melbourne as a potential area for a retail offering.
This year, Salt Meats Cheese plans to push its e-commerce platform ahead of an upcoming redesign.
“We haven’t really focused on online as much, but we are going to start pushing it to become a proper e-commerce website where you can buy Australia-wide.”
