The History of American Cheese: Part Three (and Fun Facts)

• Because who doesn’t want cheese fun facts to wrap up cheese’s history.

If you haven’t read The History of American Cheese: Part One and The History of American Cheese: Part Two, you’ll get the history of this article. Because this is part three.

Legalities

Kraft had a legal patent meaning he had the right to practice something and the right to prevent anyone else from doing it. James Kraft immediately went after them for a knock off of his cheese. He says Pabst is in violation of his patent.

Back in Milwaukee, Pabst was back and thriving, but Kraft was threatening to take it all away.

Pabst argued in court that his recipe is what makes his product unique. Pabst said that his cheese was aged for 10 months and that gave it a more robust flavor.

Kraft says that Pabst is using a process that Kraft owns. Kraft had created his own process and ultimately won in court against Pabst.

The future of Pabst was now in the hands of Kraft. He could legally shut them down, but he was a good businessman and negotiator. Kraft said to Pabst that they should, “Keep making Pabst-ett but put Kraft on the label and pay me a modest royalty.” Eventually Pabst and Kraft came up with a royalty agreement.

Back to Beer for Pabst

Prohibition ended in 1933 and with that, Pabst went back to beer. They eventually sold their cheese operation to Kraft. Pabst is worth nearly $1 billion dollars.

Kraft kept getting more popular and by 1937, the Kraft Dinner was on themarket. And then, in 1949, the individually wrapped kraft singles came on the market.

Fun Facts:

Today, we eat 40 pounds of cheese per year and Kraft is a $40 billion dollar global corporation.

Kraft mac and cheese is known as Kraft Dinner in Canada and Macaroni Cheese or Cheesey Pasta in the United Kingdom.

The Blue Ribbon in Pabst Blue Ribbon came from actual ribbons tied around the bottle. Pabst did this in 1882 as a marketing technique.

The most popular cheese in America is mozzarella.

Americans eat 12.5 pounds of mozzarella in contrast to 10.1 pounds of cheddar, mainly because of our love for pizza.