With summer slowly moving towards fall, families are preparing for the start of school. Besides acquiring school supplies like pens, notebooks and rulers, children are beginning to lobby for what items they would like in their lunch box.

A hundred years ago it was common practice to pack up the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner to use as the basis for school lunch. It was far from exciting for their kids and not the safest hygienic meal.

It took a “crafty” family to introduce an adaptation of a food item that made school lunches easy to prepare and tastier to eat. The business was started by James Kraft and his brothers. 

Their cheese business had a significant breakthrough in 1916 when they acquired a patent for a method for pasteurizing cheese. That process greatly extended the shelf life of cheese. It was now stable enough to be transported and sold in tin cans all over America.

The problem was the tin can package had to be spooned out and spread on whatever you wanted to eat. It was too cumbersome and was slow to catch on. The company was now known as the Kraft cheese company. Introduced in 1928 one of the most iconic products was Velveeta. 

Velveeta was a processed cheese product that became popular due to its smooth texture and long shelf life. But again, the problem was it was not easy to use in items like sandwiches which by then were a staple for the school lunch.

The company’s American cheese came in what looked like a block of wood. It was one solid piece of American cheese that people could not figure out a straightforward way to use it. It crumbled if you tried to slice it. The company spent so much money on their American cheese that was not selling that it was in trouble financially.

All that changed in 1950 when an accident happened in their laboratory that made the company that is so well known today. They were experimenting with pouring the American cheese into flat tin pans before it hardened. 

As they were trimming one of the pans, Norman Kraft, who had just taken over running the company, picked up a small square of American cheese and stared at it. He went to the nearby shelf and got a piece of transparent plastic and wrapped it around this three-inch square of cheese. He immediately called for a meeting of the board of directors.

At the meeting he told them there was nothing wrong with the taste of their American cheese product. The problem was the way it was packaged. He knew that it was difficult for people to figure out how to use the product in a sandwich. He then held up a slice of cheese wrapped in clear plastic and passed it around to the members of the board of directors. 

They were immediately impressed and believed that by showing households a package of eight individually sliced American cheese wrapped in plastic it would catch on. He convinced the directors that with the recent introduction of pre-sliced bread already in markets, their pre-sliced cheese would be an easy companion. 

The product, now known as Kraft Singles, took the guesswork out of how to use it on a sandwich. Each slice individually wrapped in plastic was a perfect square that fit on a slice of bread. For the first time households began adding a slice of cheese to sandwiches. So, the former two slices of white bread surrounding a slice of baloney now had a cheese element that made it tastier and more desirable especially for school-aged kids.

The company’s innovations, cheese processing and packaging have had a long-lasting impact on the food industry. They have set industry standards and influenced consumer preferences. The Kraft Singles brand is now an iconic part of consumer purchasing.

I am certain that the company now known as Kraft Heinz sells other cheese products. The company makes 26 billion U.S. dollars in annual sales. And, as the expression goes…that’s a lot of cheddar!

Hudson Cooper is a resident of Sullivan County, a writer, comedian and actor.