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Cheez-It

Current owner	Kellogg Company (2001)
Previous owners	Green & Green Company (1919) Sunshine Biscuit Company (1929) Keebler Company (1996)
Website	www.cheez-it.com/

Cheez-It is an American snack food cracker manufactured by the Kellogg Company. They are roughly 26 by 24 mm (1.0 by 0.95 inch) rectangle-shaped crackers made with wheat flour, vegetable oil, sharp yellow cheese, salt, and spices. There are a variety of related Cheez-It products, including white Cheddar, Parmesan, garlic, Cheddar jack, reduced fat, Party Mix, Hot & Spicy (made with Tabasco), and a larger cracker more suitable for garnishing or dipping. They are similar to Kraft Cheese Nips.

A Cheez-It cracker, shown near actual size on a 100 ppi monitor

According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office trademark records, the first "Cheez-It" Cheese Crackers were sold by Green & Green Company of Dayton, Ohio in May 1921. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, The Green & Green Company was acquired by The Sunshine Biscuit Company, founded in 1902 as the Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company. The Keebler Company acquired Sunshine in 1996, and Keebler was in turn acquired by Kellogg in 2001. Cheez-It crackers are still sold under the Sunshine label.

A former advertising slogan was "Get your own box" which was found on the backs of most boxes. One side also contained the so-called "Anatomy of a Cheez-It." In mid 2007, the boxes were changed to show a picture of a large wedge of cheese labeled "Actual Taste," while a Cheez-It is shown propping it up, labeled "Actual Size." The new slogan in place of "Get Your Own Box" is "The Big Cheese", with Jim Cummings as the spokesperson of the television commercials for it.

[edit] Ingredients

• Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid)
• vegetable oil (cottonseed, palm, sunflower and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ for freshness)
• skim milk cheese (skim milk, whey protein, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes, annatto extract [color])
• salt
• yeast
• paprika
• oleoresin (for color)

Cheez-It crackers are kosher.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official Cheez-It website