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This National Cheese Day, discover five cheese innovations that are transforming the industry and their benefits for manufacturers.
Launched as a response to growing demand for healthier, convenient snacks, Sargento Balanced Breaks has quickly become a consumer favorite. By combining real cheese with nuts and dried fruits in pre-portioned packs, Sargento has created a simple yet innovative product with high appeal.
Sargento continues to evolve the line with various cheese options and packaging formats, catering to different tastes and lifestyles. This emphasis on flavor and accessibility has helped make Balanced Breaks a staple in the cheese aisle, inspiring other cheese brands to rethink their offerings and influencing broader innovation in the category.
This National Cheese Day is a perfect opportunity to catch up on the cheese innovations reshaping the industry. Embracing innovation as Sargento did expands the possibilities for new product development and consumer enjoyment.
Rich flavors are the source of food enjoyment for one in three US consumers,1 making flavor an essential aspect of product development in the cheese category. Glanbia Nutritionals addresses this need with innovative natural flavoring techniques in our Flavors & Inclusions platform, adding popular ingredients like jalapeno and chipotle peppers, caramelized onion, garlic, and chives during the cheese-making process.
Consumers also seek versatile flavor profiles that work across multiple dishes for convenience and value. While Classic Cheeses like Cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Colby serve this need, Blended Cheeses such as Colby Jack and Cheddar Mozzarella offer a modern alternative.
Another game-changing innovation is technology that accelerates cheese aging. Many of our Cheeses for Aging achieve aged cheese flavor and texture profiles in significantly less time using different adjuncts and cultures. This reduces production time and costs, making it easier to scale new cheese products quickly.
Glanbia Nutritionals is proud to champion sustainability by adopting renewable energy resources in our cheese production facilities. Our Green Initiatives benefit both the environment and the industry, reducing our environmental footprint and enhancing the appeal of our products to environmentally conscious consumers.
Our commitment to renewable energy extends beyond our own operations. We actively support farmers through renewable energy investments, maximizing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions across our supply chain. Through transparent ESG reporting, we empower our customers to track our progress and share these achievements with their consumers.
Another key advancement transforming the cheese industry is the use of cutting-edge techniques to perfect texture. These cheese innovations range from process automations that improve consistency to new starter cultures developed through genomic and proteomic approaches that lead to greater textural variety.
Whether it’s sliceability, meltability, or creaminess, texture plays a crucial role in consumer satisfaction, influencing both preparation and sensory enjoyment. With rising demand for convenient comfort foods, cheese soups—such as broccoli cheese soup and beer cheese soup—are projected to grow by 57% year over year,2 highlighting the importance of getting texture just right.
Smart packaging innovations for cheese are wide-ranging, including active packaging incorporating oxygen absorbers or natural antifungal agents to extend shelf life and maintain optimum freshness. Recent advances also include smart features like freshness indicators and QR codes for real-time quality tracking and product transparency.
Innovations in flavor, texture, processing, packaging, and sustainability significantly benefit both the food industry and consumers, making this an exciting time for companies looking to incorporate cheese in their next product.
At Glanbia Nutritionals, we celebrate cheese every day. As your trusted cheese ingredient partner, we’re constantly pushing the boundaries to help you create products your consumers will love. From classic and artisan varieties to health-forward options enriched with protein, vitamin D, or probiotics, we have all the cheeses you need.
Ready to lead the market with next-level cheese innovations? Let’s collaborate to shape the future of cheese!
