With some 2,500 employees and annual net sales of $1.8 billion, Sargento Foods has been a family-owned cheese processor for 70 years. 

Founded in 1953 in Plymouth, Wis., Sargento successfully “introduced America to pre-packaged sliced and shredded natural cheeses and cheese blends.” Today, Sargento Foods is still based in Wisconsin, where it manufactures and markets shredded, sliced and snack natural cheese products.

“My grandfather [Leonard] got things started by bringing consumer packaged natural cheese to consumers,” CEO Louie Gentine tells Dairy Foods. “A focus on innovation and our culture at Sargento has allowed us to be in the position we are today.”

Gentine added his grandfather always had a desire to grow a brand, with a goal to be the most loved, most innovative, real food company for consumers. “That means we want to be a large player in the natural cheese category, as we are today,” Gentine notes. “It also gives us an opportunity to go outside of natural cheese and leverage that innovation expertise and brand-building expertise and culture, which is how we go about doing business every day.”

During the next 70 years, Sargento has broad opportunities to expand its business. “One of the things that has allowed us to be successful in the natural cheese category is our focus on the consumer,” Gentine says. “Throughout our history, we have brought shredded cheese to consumers. … Our Balanced Breaks has recently been a huge success with consumers. [In January], we are launching a new version called Fun Balanced Breaks, which will leverage the Mondelez cookie brands of Chips Ahoy! and Teddy Grahams and pair that with a fruit chew or a chunk-covered yogurt with Sargento cheese for consumers to snack on.”

Gentine stresses the snacking segment will continue to provide many opportunities for the company. “In addition to Fun Balanced Breaks, we will have some great new string cheese varieties in January as well,” he said.

As companies get larger, it can become difficult to resist the opportunity to become a public company. However, Sargento, No. 30 on the Dairy 100 list, remains a family-owned company. “We have to go back and remember the foundation we were built on,” Gentine relays. “My grandfather had a simple phrase: ‘Hire good people and treat them like family.’ That is something everyone needs to be on board with. I cannot be everywhere or know everyone. So, it is important we instill that culture within everyone, so they feel they are part of something every single day they come into work.”

Sargento’s culture also involves constantly looking to better the lives of its employees. “A lot of things we do because it is the right thing to do. Tuition reimbursement is a great example. Someone can get a technical degree, even if it’s in a field not specific to Sargento. Most importantly, we want to do something that does good for the employee,” Gentine relays. 

Other employees benefits include an annual holiday party for every member of the Sargento family and a guest. “We take over a resort in Elkhart Lake (Wis.) called The Osthoff. Also, every other year, we have a summer picnic, where retirees and employees bring their families and have a great time,” Gentine maintains. “And we host a luncheon for our retirees in December. It is a nice meal and a great opportunity to have a reunion, and is a great opportunity for myself and other leaders to recognize those who have gotten us to where we are today.”

Beyond these events, during the week of its 70th anniversary in late October, Sargento had cake and cupcakes in all of its breakrooms, as well as hosted luncheons. “We wanted to do something to recognize our historical mark of 70 years in business,” Gentine concludes.

Through the years: Key Sargento innovation and impacts

1955: Leonard Gentine and his design partner Bill Lindstedt developed a system to vacuum seal cheese in plastic. The new packaging method was a groundbreaking industry first. It allowed whole cheeses to last longer, and within a few years Sargento would develop improvements in vacuum seal technologies that enabled the cheese to be sold pre-sliced. Pre-packaged sliced natural cheese would quickly become a grocery store staple. 

1958: Sargento introduced pre-packaged shredded cheese to the dairy industry. Leonard had long pondered a way to offer customers packaged shredded cheese. He knew the concept would be successful, but there were no machines on the market that could handle the task, so he had to build one. Using a pasta maker as inspiration, Leonard, Bill Lindstedt, and Norman “Bud” Dick spent months developing a working prototype that could operate continuously and produce consistent shreds in the desired size.

1969: Sargento introduced the peg bar display to dairy aisles in grocery stores. Previously, cheeses were usually displayed on their backs on a dairy case shelf, which meant only the bottom end of the package was visible and shoppers’ eyes tended to wander right past the products. Leonard and his longtime associate (and future Sargento president) Chuck Strobel found the solution to this problem in the lunchmeat section. Lunchmeat was often hung from metal pegs that allowed the product to be displayed facing out, making customers more likely to notice it. Leonard and Chuck realized that the same principle could be used to display Sargento cheese and raise its profile. 

1986: Lee Gentine spearheaded the implementation of a resealable Zip Pak that would make it easy to reseal the cheese after it was opened. The product was test-marketed in 1986, but quickly proved so popular that Sargento ramped up production to begin a national rollout in 1987. 

2001: With new technology, all it took to open a package of Sargento cheese was a gentle pull on an easy-to-open and close slider. Sargento was the first cheese company to use the feature, the company states.

2012: In the early 2010s, many Americans wanted a unique cheese option for their sandwiches but were wary of reduced-fat product lines that altered their cheeses’ recipes. Sargento responded with Ultra Thin Slices, which were full-flavor natural cheeses cut super thin so that they would be 45 calories or less apiece. 

2015: Sargento expanded beyond cheese with Sargento Balanced Breaks, which combined the company’s natural cheeses with nuts and dried fruit to provide a nourishing and well-rounded snack. Balanced Breaks was a watershed product launch in Sargento history. 

2020: As part of its response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Sargento Foods donated $2 million in cheese to combat hunger in Wisconsin and across the United States. The company partnered with Wisconsin’s anti-hunger leader, Hunger Task Force, and its membership organization, the Hunger Relief Federation of Wisconsin as well as Feeding America, the largest hunger relief organization in the U.S. The relief effort resulted in a donation of 15.8 million cheese sticks, which was enough to feed more than 1.3 million households across the U.S. 

2021: Building upon the success of Sargento Balanced Breaks, the company gave cheese lovers a new way to pair real, natural cheese with their favorite snack crackers with the release of Sargento Balanced Breaks Cheese & Crackers Snacks. These products marked a new partnership between Sargento and Mondelez International, which combine eight Sargento natural cheese varieties with RITZ, TRISCUIT, and WHEAT THINS snack crackers, to create a classic snack that is easy to enjoy at home, at work, or on-the-go.