Soaring appetite spurs new cheesy technology

America’s appetite for pizza and other dishes that depend on the incomparable stretch-minded mozzarella cheese has soared in the last 20 years.

An indispensable ingredient in everything from pizza to lasagna and in growing demand for prepared frozen foods, mozzarella is prized not only for its mild buttery flavor but for its melting, stretching and color characteristics. In 1980, fewer than 700,000 pounds of the tasty, meltable, stretchable cheese were produced, compared to more than 2.5 million pounds in 1999.

Now, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved alternative manufacturing procedures for making mozza, University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists have perfected a new process that eliminates some of the production hassle and specialized equipment required to make mozzarella. The upshot, they hope, will be ample supplies of a cheese whose popularity shows no signs of diminishing, says Carol Chen, a UW–Madison food scientist.

“Essentially, we’ve cut out the mixing, molding and brining steps, and we still have a cheese with functionality similar to that of traditional pasta-filata-style mozzarella cheese,” says Chen, who, with fellow food scientist Mark Johnson, has patented the new mozza-making method.

The technology could be a boon to cheesemakers who can now ramp up mozzarella production with the same equipment used to make traditional American cheeses, Chen says. Moreover, the new process gives cheese-makers the ability to tailor mozzarella for specific needs by readily controlling properties of melt, stretch and cooked color.

The technology opens the door for more cheese factories to get into the mozzarella business without a big capital investment, Chen says. And, importantly, the government recognizes the cheese made by the new method as the real McCoy, potentially guaranteeing America an ample supply of the cheese essential for pizza and other favorite foods.