The History of American Snack Legend Cheez-Its
The popular cheese cracker has become a cultural icon over the past century
Few snacks are as humble as the Cheez-It baked cheese cracker. Approximately one inch by one inch (1 x0.94), the crispy orange cracker is flecked with the occasional grain of salt and has rustic cut marks that appear to be done by hand. Sold in their iconic red and orange boxes, they have been a favorite of snackers around the world for the past century.
Cheez-Its first hit the market in 1921, as the Green & Green Company out of Dayton, Ohio that had been in the cracker business since the late 1800s, unveiled the tasty treat. They were initially marketed as “baked rarebits,” (a rarebit is melted beer cheese on toast) as that was the best way the company could describe their novel product. In 1932, Sunshine Biscuits bought Green & Green, and they themselves were absorbed by Keebler in 1996 before Keebler was bought by Kellogg, the current parent company, in 2001.
Green & Green perfected their Cheez-It, even holding several patents that helped it come out with just the right level of crispiness when leaving the oven. They had gotten their start in the cracker biz selling millions of pounds of a bread-like cracker, also known as hardtack, to U.S. soldiers during World War I. They proved…
