The Dakota Cheese Company was flying high in 1983. With 11.5 million in sales of mozzarella and provolone, the 12-year-old company was expected to continue growing. Dakota Cheese president James Dee credited his government contracts for his company’s success. That success was enabling expansion into private markets. Dee expected Dakota Cheese to score a big contract with “a major chain of pizza parlors” soon.
Five years later, success gave way to disgrace. Farmers stopped delivering milk. Dee was forced to sell off his company’s assets to Associated Milk Producers Inc. No self-respecting pizza parlor would be associated with Dakota Cheese. Not after they’d been accused of defrauding the government.
The 1988 indictment claimed that by using calcium caseinate as an ingredient in the cheese purchased for school lunch contracts, Dakota Cheese had misled the government and violated the FDA cheese regulations.
A lab near Philadelphia completed an analysis of the cheese. They declared the mozzarella to be “phony.”
The company was done for.
But the Philadelphia scientists were just getting started. The analysis had them inspired. Perhaps mozzarella cheese could be altered within the confines of FDA law. Perhaps it could be improved upon, made lower fat, without sacrificing taste and texture. The lab took on the name “The Mozarella Group.”
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