A cheesy grin: Miriam Tadros with a few of the varieties of cheeses on offer at Amalia Europe Cheese, recently opened in Dandenong.By Shaun Inguanzo
AMALIA Europe Cheese has tapped into Dandenong’s multicultural element to corner an otherwise niche market in Melbourne’s south east.
The Aziz and David families from Narre Warren have come together to operate the new business in the Hemmings Street, Dandenong, retail strip.
It opened two weeks ago and so far business has been booming, according to Amalia Europe Cheese’s administration officer Miriam Tadros.
“The response has so far been overwhelming,” she said. “People have obviously been looking for a shop like this.”
The cheese shop sells freshly made ricotta and a variety of cheeses that are lapped up en masse by the surrounding Greek and Italian community – including pecorino, and grana padano parmesan.
It has been the multicultural element that Ms Tadros believes has helped the shop become so successful in so little time.
With the strong demand for cheeses for Greek and Italian cooking, the shop has ensured it has hired workers who can fluently converse in those languages.
“We identified who was the target market, and particularly with the older customers we find they tend to want to ask for quantities of cheese in either Italian or Greek,” Ms Tadros said.
Amazingly, the shop’s location next to the Dandenong Market has also been pivotal in its success.
Ms Tadros said customers often did their fresh produce shopping at the market, and fresh cheese shopping at Amalia Europe Cheese.
The prices are also a tool for attracting customers – with some cheeses being almost half the price per kilo that retail-priced outlets charge.
Ms Tadros said the shop had very few overheads and could afford to price like a wholesale outlet.
The other benefit of the Hemmings Street location was that the shopping strip has free parking – unlike most locations in central Dandenong, including the Dandenong Market.
The shop is open 9am to 5pm Tuesday to Friday, and 9am to 2pm on Saturdays. For more information phone 9793 5754.
