Say Cheese!

Americans just can’t seem to get enough cheese. In fact, per person consumption has never been higher, jumping 1.5 lb last year to 30.3 lb, while commercial volume leaped 6%, according to USDA 2000 statistics.

Cheese platters, samplers, and fondues are mainstreaming onto restaurant dessert and appetizer menus. Cheeseburgers—now the third-best-selling American restaurant menu item according to Restaurants & Institutions’ Menu Census—outsell hamburgers (No. 4). Cheese humidors are replacing br…