What American family beginning in the 1940s did not succumb to the allure of Velveeta cheese? Or was it really cheese?
Here’s the story: Way back in 1916, Jacob Weisl owned the Monroe Cheese Company in New York and had a problem. What to do with the broken or misshapen bits of cheese from his factory? His helper-genius, Emil Frey, spent two years tinkering and in 1918 came up with a new way to utilize the bits and pieces and turn them into a saleable product. Frey dubbed it Velveeta and it became an instant hit. By 1923, the name was changed to the Velveeta Cheese Company and this “sensationally satiny” cheese was being marketed across America and Europe.
Kraft Foods bought the company in 1927 and changed the recipe replacing real cheese with the paragraph of chemical elements that still graces the package today.
No matter, Velveeta fans remained loyal. The New York Times in 1976 declared Velveeta a “worldwide favorite,” with sales in America hitting an astonishing 8.75 pounds for every American. Sales figures for 2023 show net sales of about $27 billion.
Yikes, indeed, for a “cheese product” that, in fact, technically does not contain cheese.
(Source: Smithsonian Magazine, Jan-Feb 2025)
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