How New School Cheese is Upgrading the American Slice

We all love a cheeseburger or fancy grilled cheese that employs a creative use of “better” cheeses. But when you’re craving nostalgic, old school comfort food, what’s better on a burger or grilled cheese than sweet and oozy, classic American cheese? Nothing, that’s what. Neither I, nor the creators of New School American Cheese, a premium expression of the classic, will be entertaining opposing viewpoints at this time.

Now, I’d like to think that the phrase “American cheese” has evolved to mean more than just the melty yellow stuff, but that’s admittedly through my lens as a cheese professional with regular access to the artisanal goods. While American-made cheese has inarguably come a (very) long way in the past couple of decades, most Americans, along with the rest of the world, still think of American cheese as the golden, gooey goodness of grilled cheese dreams. And this is a safe space where we may freely admit that’s still kind of okay, since we — some of us secretly, some of us outwardly — pretty much love the stuff.

There’s a market for better old-school American cheese, however, using premium ingredients and a culinary mindset. To trade Kraft for craft, so to speak. Which is where New School American Cheese comes in, born of a partnership between Alan Leavitt, a finance pro with an entrepreneurial enthusiasm for food, and Eric Greenspan, a celebrated chef and grilled cheese cookbook author. Launched in 2022 as a means of making a more artisanal version of the well-known “cheese product” that still occupies space in our hearts and cheese drawers, here’s everything you need to know about American cheese’s glowed-up version.

The Genesis of New School American Cheese

Leavitt shares that in a changed, post-pandemic food landscape, he was seeking a new investment, while Greenspan was trying to get off the restaurant chef hamster wheel to spend more time with his kids. Looking to the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space, “[Eric] rattled off a bunch of ideas, and most of them I didn’t find very compelling,” says Leavitt. “And then he said, ‘artisanal American cheese,’ and as soon as he said that, my ears perked up.”

Having looked at various food products for potential development, the idea of an elevated version of a beloved staple was intuitively a home run for Leavitt. “I knew the category was huge, and there were really no challenger brands and nobody innovating.” (I am also reminded of Yoav Perry and Perrystead Dairy’s approach to making a better cream cheese with The Real Philly Schmear.)

As a chef who had helmed several restaurants known for grilled cheese sandwiches, Greenspan had skin in this game. In a 2013 article in Esquire, restaurant reviewer Brandon Jones said of Greenspan’s grilled cheese at The Foundry: “I realized I had brutally underestimated Greenspan's knowledge of what it means to eat a grilled cheese.” Greenspan’s passion for “fancy” grilled cheese — perhaps further encouraged by having young children — made him an ideal candidate for developing a version of the melty classic that chefs and avid cooks could get unapologetically behind.

“There was a growing trend, especially in the burger space, of a lot of focus on ingredients, sourcing, and different ways to elevate menus,” says Leavitt. “You would see a lot of these places talk about the grind of their beef, hand whisking mayo, and baking their own brioche buns,” he says. “And then they're kind of presented with this dilemma of putting the right cheese on it — American cheese, in our opinion — and potentially degrading the quality, introducing an ingredient that doesn't match the intentional sourcing and premium quality of all the other elements.”

Greenspan shares that, according to Leavitt, there was an opportunity here with New School American Cheese to “complete the circle of quality.”

Crafting a Better American Cheese

The “New School” name nods to “old school,” acknowledging that there’s a nostalgic element to the product itself, just updated. And its recipe isn’t so far off from classic singles, but with fewer ingredients and better sourcing of those ingredients. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, “When cheddar cheese, washed curd cheese, colby cheese, granular cheese, or any mixture of two or more of these is combined with other varieties of cheese in the cheese ingredient any of such cheeses or such mixture may be designated as ‘American cheese.’” The best-known classic brand leads with cheddar cheese but then follows with a dozen other elements, including skim milk, milk protein concentrate, and various phosphates — preservative ingredients that help the product stay creamy when melted, but that Leavitt and Greenspan intentionally chose to avoid.

New School, on the other hand, lists richer ingredients in its blend, including butter and cream. Sodium citrate, a natural compound, is the only element that acts as a flavor preservative and emulsifier. When it comes to American cheese, “It’s about the melt, right?” says Leavitt. “The fact that it stays together and is creamy and doesn’t oil off.”

Keeping its American cheese pedigree was also an important part of the process, not only in the melt factor, but in the mild flavor that doesn’t compete with the flavors of anything it accompanies. “When we were developing this we debated how sharp we wanted it to be,” says Leavitt, “and how much of the aged cheddar flavor we wanted to come through. And what we concluded is, we're trying to make a premium, delicious, flavor-forward American cheese; not a better melting sharp cheddar.”

Knowing they were going to produce this at scale right out of the gate, Leavitt and Greenspan sought a contract manufacturer who could produce according to their recipe and specifications. The search for a facility almost resulted in a partnership with a Mexican operator who could deliver the goods. Anticipating how this may land with consumers, however, they passed on the proposal and kept looking. “We can't say we're going to revitalize the American cheese category and make it in Mexico,” says Leavitt. Not knowing the tariffs that would be coming down the pipeline, this was also a fortuitous move. Instead, they found a manufacturer for New School American Cheese in the most authentic, old-school place for American cheese there is: Wisconsin.

Where to Find New School American Cheese

For the most part, the best place to find New School American Cheese is in restaurants, as chefs were the target audience at the onset of the brand. “The core of the strategy is to lead with food service,” says Leavitt, in creating brand awareness through chef validations. “And then what we're trying to do at this point is find very small, independent local stores where we can direct consumers to go buy it themselves,” he says, such as cheese stores, butcher shops, and regional markets. “We're trying to stay small and nimble and be in those higher touch, more premium, specialty retail accounts.”

A “Find Us” page on New School’s website shows not only where to buy, but where you can find it on local menus. If there’s not a place near you, the best thing you can do is to ask your local burger or cheese-forward restaurants or specialty shops whether they carry it.

“We've been very fortunate to get menu placement at a lot of our food service customers,” says Leavitt, meaning that New School American Cheese appears as an ingredient or as a descriptor of a given dish on the printed menu. “Even before we have a lot of brand awareness, when you state ‘New School American Cheese,’ it signals something to the consumer,” he says, “that ‘hey, this is different. It's elevated. There's something special about it.’”