In news that threatens to disappoint scores of children and people who like to combine snacking with obsessive-compulsive behaviors, Kraft has confirmed the increasingly accepted string cheese theory that there’s a shortage, one that’s left its cheese woefully underrepresented in string form. Unlike recent, similar crises involving Twinkies, Sriracha sauce, and Velveeta, the string cheese shortage isn’t being caused by bankruptcy, legal intervention, or a likely marketing stunt, but rather something even more odious: rotten cheese.
It all started when Kraft was forced to recall around 735,000 cases of its Polly-O snacks in October, after customers complained that they were spoiling long before their expiration date. This prompted it to recall all its string cheese products and temporarily halt production, resulting in the shortage. And like other String Cheese Incidents, it's going on way too long and it sucks.
“My child could be the poster child for 'I only WANT Polly-o String Cheese.’ She does not like any other. At this point, we have not found it for sale since the recall. When will it be back? (did I mention she's 19 yrs.),” read one representative post on Kraft’s Facebook page from Claire Behrle, whose daughter has quite possibly since been relieved of her longing by dying of embarrassment. Similar sentiments have been expressed all across the country, as many stores have had to make do with substituting other string cheese brands like Sargento, Organic Valley, or Horizon—all of which might be fine for everyone but Claire Behrle’s 19-year-old daughter who, as we all know now, throws a fit when her mom buys her anything but the string cheese she likes. For this 19-year-old woman, snack time is ruined.
Fortunately for Claire Behrle’s daughter and other voting-age adults like her, Kraft says it expects to get its string cheese back into stores by March, ending what would then be a five-month shortage. In the meantime, loyalists will just have to wait, perhaps marking the days in a big, boring block of cheese.