One company’s obsessive, decade-long quest to make American cheese that’s actually cheese

A secret R&D lab, countless grilled cheese sandwiches, the perfect cheese pull: the untold story of how Sargento defied the odds—and beat Kraft—to improve on the American classic.

[Photos: courtesy Sargento]

Bad, yet still pretty good, American cheese refuses to expire—and not just because of all the preservatives.

American cheese—pasteurized, processed, and super-melty—is, for better or worse, arguably the 20th century’s most iconic food product. And yes, “pasteurized, processed cheese food” is what federal regulators call it instead of “cheese.” It is a paradox embraced shamelessly by some of the most elite food names around.

From Salt Fat Acid Heat author Samin Nosrat (“I have a secret love of American cheese, the yellow kind that has a plasticky quality when it melts”), to J. Kenji López-Alt, whose The Food Lab dedicates a chapter to the science of melting cheese (“damn right it’s gonna be American”), to even the, er, killer high-end chef in The Menu, played by Ralph Fiennes (“American cheese is the best cheese for a cheeseburger, because it melts without splitting”), the culinary world has simply never found a substitute.

What makes American cheese “American”—its uniformity, gooey texture, the way it behaves—are ingredients that don’t naturally lend themselves to being made fresher, fancier, or healthier. Most brands have largely left the recipe alone, making just cosmetic adjustments (a cleaner ingredient or two, something spicy for an exciting kick) even as attitudes about food have shifted.

About two decades ago, the family-owned natural cheese company Sargento, founded in Wisconsin in 1953, began asking a question seemingly nobody else was asking: Can you make an exceptional American cheese from real ingredients without destroying what makes it distinctive? Or, as Louie Gentine, who, as the company’s third-generation CEO (who notably did not grow up eating American cheese at home) puts it: “If these consumers really are attached to that cheese, can we take advantage of that—bring them a natural cheese option for what they love?”

The answer, improbably, was yes.

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Clint Rainey is a Fast Company contributor based in New York who reports on business, often food brands. He has covered the anti-ESG movement, rumors of a Big Meat psyop against plant-based proteins, Chick-fil-A's quest to walk the narrow path to growth, as well as Starbucks's pivot from a progressive brand—into one that's far more Chinese. More

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