How Does One Become A Cheese Buyer For Whole Foods?
I like to eat cheese and Whole Foods generally has a good, if expensive, selection to pick from. As such I decided to ask Dan Steinberg about it since, before he was a superstar sports blogger for the Post, he was himself a cheese buyer for Whole Foods.
Washington, D.C.: Lets talk dream jobs: How does one get to become a cheese buyer for Whole Foods? Where do I send my resume? Can I list you as a reference?
Dan Steinberg: Well, you’ll probably have to start as a specialist, which means cheese-cutting and floor-mopping grunt. After that, if you show a certain passion and willingness to stand in walk-in coolers counting large and smelly rounds of fermented curd, you maybe can move on to assistant buyer, and then buyer.
There’s a nice employee discount and revenue sharing, or at least there was when I worked there. But at some point, you might feel like you want to write and even start a Cheese Lovers Newsletter for customers, and then realize that maybe you should be doing something else.
Plus, nights and weekends. Lots of em.
Doesn’t sound as glamorous as I was expecting. A Cheese Loves Newsletter sounds like a good idea though.
Holla at me