Sargento Says Its New American Cheese Is ‘Natural’ — Here’s What That Means
It took 10 years to develop the perfect recipe for this melty cheese.
Courtesy of Sargento
American cheese has a signature soft texture, mild and creamy taste, and ability to easily melt that make it immediately recognizable. At a mass scale, these attributes have largely been thanks to the processed nature of the product — but now one nationally-recognized cheese brand is hoping to change that.
Sargento has spent the past 10 years working to replicate the characteristics of American cheese without the added ingredients and manufacturing process that are commonly used to create it. The Wisconsin-based company believes it has finally succeeded, and is rolling out slices of Natural American Cheese with just five ingredients, the same number of components used to make a cheddar or Colby Jack.
But Sargento didn’t stop there with its new product launch. The brand has revealed a fiery new partnership with McCormick that features three different spicy shredded cheese blends, including cheeses seasoned with Frank’s RedHot, another with Cholula, and a third with McCormick crushed red pepper. The cheese company also has a new partnership with Mondalēz International, owners of Ritz and Triscuit crackers, for new shareable trays of cheese and crackers.
Sargento’s Natural American Cheese is melty without any additives
Courtesy of Sargento
Sargento's Natural American Cheese only contains five ingredients.“American cheese that consumers eat day in and day out isn’t 100% cheese,” Rod Hogan, Sargento vice president of innovation, tells Food & Wine. Instead, makers take scraps of a cheese like cheddar and melt it down, add additional dairy ingredients (often milk or whey), vegetable oils, water, emulsifying salts, and preservatives, and combine all of that into a processed cheese.
Unlike this method of heating and combining existing cheeses with other ingredients, a 'natural cheese' would be one that is made in a more traditional way, with just a few ingredients like milk, salt, and and enzymes. It is important to note that "natural cheese" does not have a regulated definition.
The process behind making most American cheese isn't inherently bad, and it is what makes the product both affordable and uniquely meltable, but it does mean that it can't be called real cheese. “It melts great, it has this saucy ooey gooey texture and is pretty mild,” Hogan says. “Natural cheese historically hasn’t done that. It hasn’t been able to deliver that kind of melt.”
Related: Don't Be a Snob About American Cheese
In an effort to merge the best of both worlds, Sargento has spent the past 10 years trying to make a cheese without additives — the emulsifying salts added to most American cheeses have typically been key to its extreme meltability — that still behaves like a processed version. There are other artisanal, non-processed American cheeses out there, often made by smaller purveyors, like New School American. But even this brand’s delicious and particularly flavorful American cheese does still include sodium citrate, the emulsifying salt that usually helps American cheese melt so easily.
The new Natural American Cheese from Sargento features the same five ingredients found in a cheddar, Colby-Jack, or Monterey Jack: milk, salt, enzymes, rennet and annatto (a natural food coloring from the seeds of the achiote tree, which is used to make cheddar orange).
“It is made just like natural cheese,” Hogan says about the new product. But it also "has the melt, taste, and texture that consumers love of American cheese. This is not natural processed. This isn’t organic processed. This is making natural cheese like we do, but giving it the performance characteristics of taste, texture and melt [that American cheese has].”
While Hogan clarifies that the exact science of how the brand developed an American cheese without intense processing or any emulsifying agents is now a closely guarded proprietary secret, he does recount that it's been a “labor of love” with many different hiccups over the last decade. At one time Sargento put a pause on the project until the team could better understand the science needed to develop a product that would act the way they wanted it to.
When asked how Sargento makes the cheese, Hogan explains that “First and foremost, it is like what you would think it is. Milk combines with cultures and enzymes and turns into curds. The whey separates, then we press the curd into a block, and it becomes cheese, as has been done for hundreds of years. That is what we mean [when we say it is] real and natural cheese.”
To develop the product, the cheese company was focused on perfecting two different aspects: texture and the cheese's ability to easily melt, and its flavor. “We worked on those separately and, ultimately, had to smash them back together to deliver in the end,” Hogan recalls.
The Sargento Natural American Cheese will come individually sliced in zippered packs of 12 and 24 slices, each separated by paper. Instead of hanging in the deli aisle with other Sargento sliced products, it will likely be placed next to other American cheeses in your local grocery store.
Sargento Seasoned Shredded Cheeses bring the heat
Besides bringing a new perspective to American cheese, Sargento wants to embrace the bold, spicy flavors that younger generations are gravitating toward. A mix of new Sargento Seasoned Shredded Cheese products in partnership with McCormick brands aims to do just that. The three new products each offer a different shredded cheese blend flavored with spicy seasonings, including some of your favorite hot sauces.
With research showing that over 70% of Gen Z and millennial audiences look for spicy flavors in food, Hogan highlights that today’s palates are quite different from past generations. That led Sargento to turn up the heat a bit. “We got really excited about a couple of properties under the McCormick umbrella, Cholula and Frank’s,” Hogan notes, adding that Sargento is the first cheese to co-brand with them.
The Sargento offering with Frank’s RedHot is a mix of shredded white cheddar, Colby Jack, and the new Natural American Cheese, seasoned with the vivid hot sauce. Hogan envisions the mix being used for dishes like Buffalo chicken dip or quesadillas, to name just a few.
Related: 25 Irresistible Baked Cheese Recipes
Cholula’s growing popularity made it an obvious choice for spicing up some cheese, Hogan says, with the condiment added to a mix of queso quesadilla and asadero cheeses. “Certainly, the Cholula could have the biggest breadth, as I see so much Cholula going on,” he emphasizes. “This could go [on everything] from eggs to enchiladas really fast.”
The cheese seasoned with McCormick Crushed Red Pepper is an Italian-themed blend of mozzarella and Parmesan, which Hogan anticipates being used in staple Italian dishes.
Per the Sargento executive, the most challenging part of development was delivering on the promise of truly featuring both brands in one item. They needed to nail the right balance of being both a Sargento product and one that fans of Frank’s, Cholula, or McCormick wouldn't be disappointed with. It was also important that the cheeses not be spicy just for the sake of being spicy, and that they deliver the distinct flavor profile of Frank’s, Cholula, and McCormick’s red pepper flakes alongside their fiery notes.
Sargento releases snack trays for sharing
The third part of Sargento’s major release is Sargento Shareables, a new product in partnership with Mondalēz International, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, which owns ubiquitous cracker brands Ritz and Triscuit. The snack trays are designed to serve up to four people, come in resealable packaging, and each pack includes two different Sargento cheeses with one of the familiar crackers.
Related: The 3 Cheeses That a Professional Cheesemonger Always Keeps in Her Fridge
Cheeses featured in the packs include cheddar and Colby-Jack, white cheddar and Gouda, and Pepper Jack and Monterey Jack. Customers can find the cheesy snack packs in the refrigerated aisles of their grocery stores.
All three of Sargento’s new releases, including its Natural American Cheese, three renditions of Sargento Seasoned Shredded Cheese, and the Sargento Shareables snack trays can be found starting on March 18 at grocery retailers nationwide.
Sargento's New Releases
New Products:
Sargento Natural American Cheese
Sold in packs of 12 and 24 slices
Sargento Seasoned Shredded Cheeses
Shredded Cheese with Frank's RedHot Original Seasoning
Shredded Cheese with Cholula
Shredded Cheese with McCormick Crushed Red Pepper Seasoning
Sargento Shareables
Cheddar and Colby-Jack with Ritz
White Cheddar and Gouda with Triscuit
Pepper Jack and Monterey Jack with Ritz
Release Date: March 18
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