 | |
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| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food manufacturing |
| Founded | 1950 |
| Headquarters | Denver, Colorado, U.S. |
Key people | James Leprino (founder, chairman & CEO) Mike Durkin (President) |
| Products | Dairy ingredients |
Number of employees | 4,000+ (2014) |
| Website | www.leprinofoods.com |
Leprino Foods is an American company with headquarters in Denver, Colorado that produces cheese, lactose, whey protein and sweet whey. [1] [2] It is the world's largest maker of mozzarella cheese. [3]
Leprino Foods was founded by James Leprino's father Mike Leprino in 1950 as a family-owned market selling grocery items and handmade cheese in Denver. [1] [2] It was first sold under the Gina Marie brand. [1] Leprino Foods has facilities in Waverly, New York; Remus, Michigan; Allendale, Michigan;Lubbock, Texas; Greeley, Colorado; Fort Morgan, Colorado; Roswell, New Mexico; Singapore; Tracy, California; and Lemoore, California. [2] It operates plants in Brazil (PicNic brand), Northern Ireland and Wales. [2] The company's cheeses include mozzarella, reduced-fat Monterey jack, provolone, reduced-fat cheddar and various cheese blends, mainly for pizzeria and foodservice operators, frozen food manufacturers and private label cheese packagers. Leprino supplies cheese to 85% of the pizza market, including Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesars, Papa John's, Godfather's Pizza, Hungry Howie's, Tombstone, Tony's, Jack's, and Digiorno. Their cheese and products are also used by Hot Pockets, Stouffer's, Smart Ones, and other products used in Yoplait yogurt, Pillsbury Toaster Strudel, and baby formula. Leprino is the US's largest exporter of lactose. They sell one billion pounds of cheese per year for $3 billion. [4]
In 2009, it was ranked by Forbes as the 165th largest private company in the United States. [5]
Mozzarella is a semi-soft non-aged cheese prepared by the pasta filata ('stretched-curd') method with origins from southern Italy.
Pizza cheese encompasses several varieties and types of cheeses and dairy products that are designed and manufactured for use specifically on pizza. These include processed and modified cheese, such as mozzarella-like processed cheeses and mozzarella variants. The term can also refer to any type of cheese suitable for use on pizza. The most popular cheeses used in the preparation of pizza are mozzarella, provolone, cheddar and Parmesan. Emmental, pecorino romano and ricotta are often used as toppings, and processed pizza cheeses manufactured specifically for pizza are mass-produced. Some mass-produced pizza cheeses are frozen after manufacturing and shipped frozen.
A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast-food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.
Whey is the liquid remaining after milk has been curdled and strained. It is a byproduct of the manufacturing of cheese or casein and has several commercial uses. Sweet whey is a byproduct resulting from the manufacture of rennet types of hard cheese, like cheddar or Swiss cheese. Acid whey is a byproduct brought out during the making of acid types of dairy products, such as strained yogurt.
Papa John's International, Inc., d/b/a Papa Johns, is an American pizza restaurant chain. As of 2023, it is the fourth largest pizza delivery restaurant chain in the United States, with headquarters in the Louisville, Kentucky and Atlanta, Georgia metropolitan areas.
Whey protein is a mixture of proteins isolated from whey, the liquid material created as a by-product of cheese production. The proteins consist of α-lactalbumin, β-lactoglobulin, serum albumin and immunoglobulins. Glycomacropeptide also makes up the third largest component but is not a protein. Whey protein is commonly marketed as a protein supplement, and various health claims have been attributed to it. A review published in 2010 in the European Food Safety Authority Journal concluded that the provided literature did not adequately support the proposed claims.
Stuffed crust pizza is pizza with cheese or other ingredients added into the outer edge of the crust. The stuffed crust pizza was popularized by Pizza Hut, which debuted this style of pizza in 1995.
Kraft Foods Inc. was a multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It marketed many brands in more than 170 countries. Twelve of its brands annually earned more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oreo, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, and Tang. Forty of its brands were at least a century old.
The history of pizza began in antiquity, as various ancient cultures produced flatbreads with several toppings. Pizza today is an Italian dish with a flat dough-based base and toppings, with significant Italian roots in History.
Strained yogurt, Greek or Greek-style yogurt, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt, kerned yogurt or labneh is yogurt that has been strained to remove most of its whey, resulting in a thicker consistency than normal unstrained yogurt, while still preserving the distinctive sour taste of yogurt. Like many types, strained yogurt is often made from milk enriched by boiling off some water content, or by adding extra butterfat and powdered milk. In Europe and North America, it is often made from low-fat or fat-free cow's milk. In Iceland a similar product named skyr is made.
Cheese analogues are products used as culinary replacements for cheese. They are usually products made by blending other fats or proteins and used in convenience foods. The category includes vegan cheeses as well as some dairy-containing products that do not qualify as traditional cheeses, such as processed cheese. These foods may be intended as replacements for cheese, as with vegan products, or as alternatives, as in the case of products used for salad bars and pizza-making, that may have other properties such as lower cholesterol content or different melting points that make them attractive to businesses.
Davisco Foods is a company headquartered in Le Sueur, Minnesota. It was founded in 1943. They also own Cambria, the sole producer of quartz work surfaces in the United States.
James Leprino is an American billionaire, businessman, and chairman of Leprino Foods, the world's largest manufacturer of mozzarella cheese. He was listed as the 264th richest person in the US with a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to the 2017 Forbes 400 list. Forbes' Chloe Sorvino nicknamed him the "Willy Wonka of cheese".
The presence of pizza restaurant chains has contributed to a significant increase in pizza consumption in Mainland China and Hong Kong. This also had an effect of introducing cheese as a culinary ingredient and everyday food in China, which was relatively uncommon in Chinese cuisine prior to the emergence of pizza chains. Pizza Hut opened its first store in China in 1990, and several pizza restaurant chains exist in China today.
Virginia H. Holsinger was a food scientist whose research was significant in the dairy industry. Her research on enzymes as dietary supplements and food treatments was critical to the development of Lactaid and Beano.