Domino's, Pizza Hut, And Papa Johns' Cheese Comes From The Same Place

Though each international pizza chain has its loyal fans and rabid detractors, Domino's, Pizza Hut, and Papa Johns all source cheese from Leprino Foods, one of the biggest and most influential cheese producers in the pizza industry. Now, this doesn't mean all three chains are sprinkling identical bags of mozzarella onto their pies. Not in Leprino's world, where the cheese behemoth specifically develops unique products for each customer. Founded in 1950 by Mike Leprino Sr. in Denver's Little Italy, Leprino Foods had the good fortune to be distributing wholesale cheese just as America's love affair with pizza chains kicked off.

Today, the still-family-owned company, still headquartered in Denver, is the world's largest mozzarella manufacturer and produces an enormous range of dairy products. But you won't find its name among the most popular cheese brands. Its cheeses aren't made directly for consumers, but rather for food service companies, frozen-food manufacturers, and, yes, pizza chains. Leprino is particularly popular with pizza clients because it learned how to manufacture cheeses that behaved predictably in commercial ovens and could be distributed on an enormous scale. 

One of its key innovations came in the 1980s with its Quality-Locked Cheese, a corporate-sounding product that refers to individually quick-frozen shredded cheese that allowed thousands of restaurants to produce pizzas with consistent results. Small-batch artisanal cheese made in the traditional way, this is not. But you also wouldn't rake in $3 billion in annual sales if you were an Old World cheesemonger. Not too shabby for a business that began as a small Italian-goods grocery store.

Pizza Hut boasts one of the longest relationships with Leprino. The cheese company has been supplying the brand since 1968, and worked with the Hut to simplify its operations by creating frozen, presliced blocks. Leprino's relationship with Domino's also goes back decades; Leprino became its exclusive cheese supplier in 1996, working with the brand to make sure the cheese maintained its gooey appearance as pizzas spent time in the delivery system.

Meanwhile, Papa Johns has been quite public about its relationship with the cheese giant. Its SEC filings name Leprino as its sole supplier of mozzarella cheese domestically and almost all of it internationally. The relationship goes back to 1984, when Leprino developed a special mozzarella blend just for Papa.

While there actually are multiple types of mozzarella, it's likely Leprino's work for its pizza clients focuses on low-moisture mozzarella, which has a long shelf life and excellent meltability. But Leprino is quick to emphasize that no two pizza chains have the same requirements; in fact, it deliberately keeps chains' formulations separate. Developing custom blends lets each customer specify its melting behavior, flavor, and desired browning.

If you don't enjoy major fast food pizza chains, you're still not immune to Leprino. Hot Pockets, Stouffer's, Pillsbury Toaster Strudel, and even baby formulas are customers of the B2B brand. It's no wonder Forbes magazine once called James Leprino, son of Mike, "the Willy Wonka of cheese."