Inspirational Cheese Retailers 2025 - Relish Delicatessen, Jersey

Relish Delicatessen
Location: St Helier, Jersey
Founded: 1995
Founder: Florian de Poray (since 2010)

Wine, food and eating well have been a defining thread throughout most of Relish Delicatessen owner Florian de Poray’s life. Having spent decades travelling around Europe, being exposed to the best ingredients, he says his first foray into retail (buying the business from its original founder in 2010) was always going to centre around absolute quality – including sourcing the very best cheeses he could lay his hands on.

“Cheese is one of those things I find quite extraordinary,” he says of his love of fromage. “When I was younger, studying fine art in Florence, I was reading a Medieval manuscript, and found the people there got an awful lot of cheese from England. I thought it was strange. In the 80s, cheese in England wasn’t considered very good. Why would they come over here to get it? It transpired it was really good!”

Relish was a small but reputable shop when Florian took the reins – mostly selling wines, with a few cheeses and accoutrements. “I felt this was something I could take on that wasn’t too scary to begin with! The idea was to gently expand it, because my knowledge of the market wasn’t very good. It had to be done in a slow way.”
Little by little he’s put his stamp on the business, including closing (due to Covid restrictions) the restaurant and original location, and moving to new premises.

A different kind of customer

Indie shoppers in Jersey have quite different expectations to those on the mainland, Florian explains. Being so close to France, “people are much more interested in French cheeses than English, as much as I try to push them”. The ratio, he says, is 20-30% British to 70-80% continental.

Increasing the number of cheeses at Relish was a no-brainer for him. “The very obvious thing was that cheese was the direction for the shop. It’s a small island, with only 100,000 people, there’s not much competition.” Around 100 varieties fill the counter at any time, with goat and sheep cheeses continually rising in popularity, he says, adding that a number of customers have asked for these due to their intolerance to cow’s milk. “They’ve become really important.”

He continues, “The way people are shopping has changed considerably since I’ve been here. I realised early on you have got to give people a reason to come in. You have to be able to offer them something that’s different from any other type of operation.”

Florian’s art background has come in handy. “I’ve tried to ensure it [the shop] is as artistic as possible. It’s beautifully laid out, with beautiful music. The whole thing is a beautiful experience. And that’s the way you have to go with marketing shops these days. You always have to be different to everyone else.”

Most items (especially cheese) at Relish aren’t available elsewhere on the island. “You also have to make sure the quality is absolutely top notch. Everything has to be the best!”
Controversially (for some) this ethos means Florian will sometimes eschew local produce. He doesn’t want to sell just any old cheese, crackers or chutneys – they have to be remarkable in taste and presentation.

Building trust

Florian’s approach to selling cheese is to create a relationship of trust with customers. “When they come in, they trust you have good taste and, generally, if they have a good time, haven’t been pressurised, and got everything they wanted, they will come back. If they wanted a hard cheese, we’d get them to try three to four different ones to see what they like.”

The team spend a lot of time talking about the cheeses, where they’re from, and how they are different from one another – and it’s something customers (be they locals or tourists) appreciate. “Giving tastings is essential. It includes customers in the buying experience. They have to be involved in it,” he says.
What he loves most is sharing his enthusiasm with everyone. “To see what they like and don’t like, and to guide them. It’s a lovely thing.”