VINTAGE 1958 KRAFT VELVEETA CHEESE COMMERCIAL

Yup, Velveeta, 104-years later, is still available

Yup, Velveeta is a food product from our childhood that is still manufactured. Velveeta, a brand name for a processed cheese product was first made by Emil Frey of the "Monroe Cheese Company" in Monroe, New York. According to a January 15, 2014 article in Smithsonian Magazine written by Natasha Geiling, found here, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/there-is-no-shortage-history-when-it-comes-velveeta-180949312/?no-ist; Frey was “a Swiss cheesemaker who moved from Switzerland to upstate New York, where he worked in cheese factories in the late 1880s….”

Frey “learned that by adding a by-product of cheesemaking called whey, which is the liquid released from curds during the cheesemaking process, to the leftover Swiss bits, he could create a very cohesive end-product. Frey named the product Velveeta, and in 1923, the Velveeta Cheese Company became its own corporation. It was successful for a while as its own company (which was based out of Monroe, NY), but in 1927, it was sold to Kraft Foods…

“In 1931, the American Medical Association gave Velveeta its stamp of approval, citing that the product had all the necessary nutritional value to build ‘firm flesh.’

“Velveeta's popularity increased throughout the '30s, '40s and into the '50s--studies of consumer preference done in the 1930s found that two-thirds of Americans preferred processed cheese to natural cheese…”