History

• In the United States, the most notable example of scrap cheese being developed into a sellable product is the cheese products sold under the name of Kraft. Velveeta was the brainchild of a Swiss man who was able to use the cheddar and Colby scraps with added ingredients to make a shelf-stable cheese. Kraft was credited for marketing the cheese as not needing refrigeration and being a good melting cheese.
  
  

Function

• Scrap cheese can be used not only in the commercial market but also by the individual. Local grocery stores usually will sell their cheese scraps as cheese ends for a reduced price. This cheese can be used in a variety of uses. The processed cheeses can be melted and used in dishes like macaroni and cheese or cheese biscuits. Hard cheese ends are wonderful in fondues and gourmet cheese dishes where the flavor would be compromised by processed cheeses.
  
  

Significance

• The importance of selling and using cheese ends is mostly felt by the seller as he can recoup profits that would have been lost if the scraps were wasted. Of course, the consumer benefits from the reduced cost, especially important in times of economic distress. The processed cheese food industry stands to gain the most as it can support a whole industry on the waste of another.
  
  

Identification

• Recently, the United States has set stricter regulations on the cheese industry on what it can actually call cheese food. It has to contain at least 51 percent cheese to be called a cheese food, and most of the Kraft cheese products like Velveeta and other cheese spreads will be called a cheese product. Apparently, people were under the assumption that if the title of a food contained "cheese," then it was a cheese, when in fact, very little of the product is dairy-based. New regulations require the names of the actual cheese used in the process, such as processed Swiss cheese. American cheese is the exception and is a combination of cheddar, Colby, and granular cheese.
  
  

Types

• There are basically four types of "fake" cheese, the pasteurized process cheese food, pasteurized process cheese spread, pasteurized process cheese product, and the imitation cheese. Each of them varies in regulations on the dairy content, the moisture content, the additives as well as the temperature at which it will spread. The last product, the imitation cheese, is not a cheese at all, rather a product of vegetable oil emulsion.