The menu offered a small selection of snack boxes. I chose the "CaféSnack," which was supposed to include Swiss and Gouda cheese.
When the food arrived, I discovered that it actually included Glacier Ridge Farms brand "Gouda style pasteurized process cheese food, gouda-type flavor" and "Swiss style pasteurized process cheese food, swiss-type flavor."
So this was something similar to cheese, but with a few more adjectives -- and a few more ingredients. In addition to cheese, each package contained water, sodium phosphate, calcium proprionate and salt.
It didn't taste awful, but I would have preferred just plain cheese. Cheese isn't terribly perishable, but perhaps there's a good reason it's not practical to serve on a commercial flight. I decided I'd try to find out.
According to Cheese Market News, (yep, no kidding!), Glacier Ridge Farms is the brand name for a line of products manufactured by Dairyfood USA of Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. Their website has a helpful "contact us" form, where I submitted this question:
Hi. I recently ordered a CafeSnack snack box on a US Airways flight, which included Glacier Ridge Farms Gouda style and Swiss style pasteurized process cheese food. These tasted pretty good, but I noticed from the name and ingredients that they're not just cheese. I'd appreciate any information you can share about why US Airways offers this product rather than regular cheese.
The "contact us" form on the US Airways website was a little more challenging to use: I had to divulge my phone number, address and flight details. Still, I was able to submit a similar question there.
If I get a reply from Dairyfood or US Airways, I'll be sure to update this post.
I received this reply from a sales director at Dairyfood USA:
ReplyDeleteHi Steve,
US Airways (and all Airlines) use our Glacier Ridge Farms Pasteurized
Process Cheese Food bars because they want a shelf-stable cheese that will
be safe for their customers. Most "Natural" cheeses will not hold up very
long out of refrigeration. Shelf-stable snack packs offer Airlines many
advantages over refrigerated snack packs (longer shelf life, less waste,
lower storage & handling costs...). Dairyfood USA specializes in producing
shelf-stable cheeses - Pasteurized Process Cheese, Pasteurized Process
Cheese Food, and Pasteurized Process Cheese Spreads. By definition, a
Process Cheese Food has a slightly higher moisture content (1-3% in our
products) as compared to a Process Cheese.
Feel free to contact me with any further questions.
At least you got a reply, but I'm very curious to also know the nutritional differences. Pasteurized Process Cheese sounds a possible solution if you're without refrigeration for an extended time and simply must have cheese. However, I thought that cheese was invented as a way of preserving and storing milk in a less perishable form, before the days of refrigeration. Why would anyone need/want to buy/consume process cheese "food" if it only contains more water? Please post if you find the nutritional differences in equivalent portions of each. I strongly suspect that these imposters must contain less dairy/milk, therefore containing less calcium and protein, and added fats. In the first line of the blog, did you mean to repeat "I didn't expect free food" - or was that for emphasis ;-) ?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Judy, that was a typo in the first sentence. I've fixed it. And good question about the nutritional differences between real cheese, process cheese and process cheese food. If any readers know, please weigh in. I'll try to research it myself sometime soon, as well.
ReplyDelete