The Charlotte Debut
Murray's Cheese is expanding its in-store kiosk footprint into Charlotte for the first time, placing a six-SKU cave-aged collection inside five Harris Teeter locations this fall. The launch marks the first time Murray's proprietary Cave Aged Reserve line has been commercially available in the Charlotte market, deepening a grocery partnership that now spans more than 1,200 Kroger-family stores nationwide.
Award-Winning SKUs
Five of the six cheeses entering Harris Teeter earned honors at the 2026 American Cheese Society Judging & Competition Awards, one of the most closely watched accolades in the U.S. artisan cheese segment. The debut assortment spans a range of styles: Murray's Cave Aged Reserve Cornelia (buttery cow's milk), Cave Aged Reserve Barnstorm Blue (raw milk washed-rind blue), Cave Aged Reserve Hudson Flower (herb-and-flower-coated), Cave Aged Mini Greensward (spruce-wrapped, cider-washed), Cave Aged Original Stockinghall Cheddar — recognized as Best Cheddar and Best American Cheese at the World Cheese Awards — and Cave Aged Reserve Carpenter's Wheel, an Alpine-style goat cheese. Each wheel is aged using affinage techniques developed inside Murray's New York City cheese caves, where the company's team controls temperature and humidity to shape flavor, texture, and rind development.
"Our cheese caves allow us to experiment with flavor and be endlessly curious about cheese," said Nick Tranchina, President of Murray's Cheese. "With cheeses crafted by some of the finest cheesemakers in the U.S. and finished by our dedicated team, we hope to introduce customers to their new favorite cheese."
Retail Strategy and In-Store Experience
The kiosk format — staffed daily by trained cheesemongers — is central to Murray's broader retail strategy within Kroger-banner stores. The model blends specialty food retail with an experiential layer: regular tasting events, including Parmesan wheel crackings and fondue samplings, are designed to drive trial and repeat purchase in a category where consumer education directly correlates with basket size. Harris Teeter hosted inaugural Perfect Pairing events on August 27 at all five Charlotte-area locations, giving shoppers direct access to Murray's affineur team.
For Harris Teeter, the partnership reinforces investment in elevated specialty departments at a time when premium and artisan food segments continue to outpace conventional grocery growth. The grocer operates more than 250 stores across eight states and Washington, D.C., with a concentration in the Southeast — a region where specialty cheese retail has historically lagged coastal metros. Charlotte's five-store launch could serve as a template for broader regional rollout if initial sell-through meets internal benchmarks. Operators and buyers tracking specialty food retail trends will find the kiosk-within-grocery model a useful case study in how artisan brands scale distribution without diluting brand positioning. The deal also illustrates how Kroger continues to leverage its Murray's Cheese acquisition — completed in 2017 — as a differentiation tool across its banner portfolio.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
