Kraft Dinner

Kraft Dinner (KD) in Canada, Kraft Mac & Cheese in the United States, Australia and New Zealand, Mac and Cheese in the United Kingdom and internationally, is a nonperishable, packaged macaroni and cheese product. It is made by Kraft Foods Group (or former parent company Mondelez internationally) and traditionally cardboard-boxed with dried macaroni pasta and a packet of processed cheese powder. It was introduced under the Kraft Dinner name simultaneously in both Canada and the U.S. in 1937. The brand is particularly popular with Canadians, who consume 55% more boxes per capita than Americans. There are now many similar products, including private label, of nonperishable boxed macaroni and cheese. Commercially, the line has evolved, with deluxe varieties marketed with liquid processed cheese, as well as microwavable frozen mac-and-cheese meals. The product by Kraft has developed into many flavour variations and formulations, including Easy Mac (a product that has since been renamed Mac & Cheese Dinner Cups), a single-serving product designed specifically for microwave ovens. The product's innovation, at the time of the Great Depression, was to conveniently market nonperishable dried macaroni noodles together with a processed cheese powder. The product is prepared by cooking the pasta and adding the cheese powder along with butter (or margarine) and milk. History The prerequisite to a shelf-stable packaged macaroni and cheese product was the invention of processed cheese, where emulsifying salts help stabilize the product, giving it a longer life. Although James Lewis Kraft, of Fort Erie, Ontario, but living in Chicago, did not invent processed cheese, he won a patent for one processing method in 1916 and began to build his cheese business.