Easy Cheese
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Easy Cheese is the trademark for a processed cheese product distributed by Kraft Foods, also referred to as aerosol cheese or spray cheese. It comes packaged in a spray can, much like canned whipped cream.
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[edit] History
Easy Cheese was originally marketed by Nabisco in 1966 under the name Snack Mate. After the merger of Kraft and Nabisco in 1988, the product was renamed Easy Cheese. It is sold in the United States, where it is usually served on crackers. Ritz Crackers in particular, another Kraft Foods product, are heavily cross-promoted with Easy Cheese. However, the Nabisco brand remained until 2001.[citation needed]
It is available in several flavors, including American cheese, mild and sharp cheddar, Swiss, nacho, and bacon & cheddar. The bacon & cheddar flavor used to contain tiny chunks of bacon, which easily clogged the can's nozzle. Kraft Foods has since reworked the recipe to omit the bacon particles in favor of bacon flavoring. In 2007, Kraft began producing a cream cheese variety of Easy Cheese.[citation needed]
[edit] Can design
Although sometimes called "aerosol cheese", its container is not actually an aerosol spray can, because the cheese does not combine with the propellant (nitrogen) to turn into a fine mist upon being sprayed. Rather, the can contains plastic cap which serves as a barrier and piston whose movement squeezes the cheese through the nozzle in a solid column when the nozzle is pressed. The propellant, therefore, does not mix with the cheese. This explains why the can has a small rubber plug on its base. Normal aerosol cans are charged with all of their contents through the single opening at the top, but spray cheese cans are separately charged with cheese through the top and propellant through the bottom. The can design also ensures that the cheese can be dispensed with the can upright or inverted.
