so we have a new restaurant depot in town and I stopped by looks like I could save a few bucks here and there, I was very curious about the sorrento cheese line, I tried it and it cooked off really well. anyone else using it?
Hi Rockstar,
We’ve been using sorrento whole milk low moisture mozz since the mid 90’s. It’s been a excellent product for us. Bakes really nice. We are in Western New York and I’d say probably 85- 90% of the pizzerias use this cheese. We are very happy with it.
Mike
Before I was converted to Grande, which I do love, we used Sorrento for about 2 months…BIGGEST mistake I made when it came to cheese. No I did not drink the Grande Kool Aid…but you get what you are paying for. Sorrento, at least at that time, was known for pumping their cheese with moisture and as a result packed their cheese with cellulose to absorb the water. When you look at a bag of cheese and you see the dust at the bottom of the bag…cellulose.
NOW…if you are paying by the pound, no matter what the amount, who wants to pay for water and cellulose? The taste or meatiness is nothing to write home about. When a cheese has additives such as water and cellulose, you need to use more to get the “spread” of the other higher quality cheeses on the market.
Sure, from the outside looking in you notice the price and then the quality? I have tried and tried to not rationalize why we use Grande, and overall I just cant find a reason to change to a lower priced yet lower quality cheese.
Remember…this is only my opinion and others will disagree…but I can honestly say that I have tried 5 other cheeses before settling on our choice.
While you’re @ RD - Try their house cheese - I believe it is packed by Saputo (in Fla @ least) - as good as or better than Sorrento, which I’ve used in the past…we shred/blend ours…I never drank the Grande Kool-Aid either - used it & prefer out current set-up
What flavours does grande kool aid come in?
Sorry couldn’t help myself 
Cellulose is added to pre-shredded cheeses as an anti-clumping agent. If you buy cheese in block form and shred it yourself there won’t be any cellulose.
And yeah, I’m a LMWM Sorrento user - love the cheese.
Doesn’t matter . . . they all cost a lot 
Like piper said, cellulose is not a Sorrento evil additive, it is a shredded cheese thing. Every shredded product I’ve used has it. Cannot remember if Grande shredded does, but I would think probably so unless they found an alternative to avoid clumping. Maybe their “cheese don’t stick”
I believe Grande uses shredded dollar bills to prevent caking and clumping. It costs a bit more to do that, but boy is it worth it!
Just two hours ago I found out my local distributor now carries my mozz/prov blend ratio . . . . diced from Grande. I may have to break down and get a sample to run against their house brand soon. I know the price is high, but if I really can get a comparable flavor profile, and use less cheese to get the same experience, then I’ll do the math to see what cost there is to save or not.
I’m just sayin’.
“Shredded dollar bills!” I LOVE IT… lmao.
remember though that you need fewer shredded dollar bills with grande as it goes further!!!
Last I checked Grande does not use anything.
RD brand cheese does use cellulose.
I have used Grande and do not see any point in using it… I guess I drank the Grande Haterade, I have used Saputo, Many house brands are packed by Saputo at a lower price, Vantaggio… I have used s Sorrento and I think it is a good product… it tends to brown pretty easily…
I’m a grande supporter. But seriously the shredded dollar bill thing. I want to quote that on my website.
ok…ok…as for the dollar bills…let’s reverse it…if you have good cheese…it can turn into dollar bills. I understand all the points…and YES it is with pre-shredded and diced which is what most pizzerias use as apposed to block. and as for the browning…uh…again, the water pumped into the cheap cheese burning off…just like part-skim milk.
I have not drank the juice…I just know that I make educated decisions and cut Grande against others including Saputo, Sysco private lable and my current suppliers private lines and about a month ago I did it again since I wanted to see if things were still the same…and YES the spread vs cost is still the same…you WILL use more of other brands as compared to Grande.
So…NOW lets do the math…if you use less of a product as compared to a competing product it will either save money…or even the cost out…then you need to add stability while baked and taste into the mix.
Buying cheese is NOT just as simple as comparing cost per pound which is the simplest way to choose, but even a crap cheese can be cheaper…as well as a great cheese based on your personal choice.
Another thing to remember is that NOT all bags of cheese are manufactured and bagged by the actual company selling the product. For instance, Sysco sources their product out and places products out for bid to the lowest bidder…sooooo, what you buy today for their private lable cheese may NOT be the same cheese 6 months from now. An other example is a product called Misto, a provate lable…it’s white…it looks like moxx or prov…but its a mix that includes white cheddar…BECAUSE CHEDDAR IS CHEAPER AND BRINGS DOWN THE OVERALL COST PER POUND.
COLOR…there are TWO types of American Cheese by Land o’ Lakes…white and yellow. Comparitively they are both the same…but yellow american is an east cost blend and white american is a west coast blend…WHY? The east coast is dyed yellow becasue if you were to see BROWN American you would not buy it. East Coast Yellow American is dyed because the East Coast cows that are kept out in the incimate weather eat crap, mud, and other yummy colory altering foods.
So…to conclude, I buy Grande due to its overall pureness; taste; opull; meatiness; consistency; and spread vs. other compporable products. Just because another cheese is cheaper…or tastes better…does not mean it’s the right or wrong choice…it all comes down to research, opinion and sometimes what’s accepted in your region
Mandy, I am with your reasoning all the way. Gotta price, taste and test for yourself.
When I did the math with Grande about 2+ years ago, I would have to use half the amount of cheese in order to meet the same margins, and the performance was just not as good in my oven with my sauce. I find that pizzerias with heavily spiced sauces . . . like using those 1# spice bags . . . will taste different than my rather judiciously seasoned sauce when Grande is in play. My pie is about tomato and cheese balanced. I could not get Grande to give me the balanced flavor profile we want . . . . without heavily seasoning the sauce, which kinda misses the point for us.
You hit another good point that distributors contract out their cheese labels most of the time. About every six months I try to get the manufacturer info for the cheese in their label. It did make a difference once recently, and we changed our cheese profile. I am looking at going with a national label this spring to find that consistency and confidence I don’t always get with house labeled mozz/prov.
Grande label doesn’t get any play here in West GA. They want an affordable, consistent product that tastes good and is served well. If any product helps me do that . . . and I can afford it in my market limitations . . . then we jump on board.
I’m not sure I follow. The water burning off causes the cheese to brown? I can’t recall ever boiling a pot of water and having it turn brown. Cheese browning is related to the amount of lactose present. Are you saying Grande doesn’t brown? Because that’s a highly desirable quality for me and part of the reason I chose Sorrento.
Yes, lets do that. It seems your prime argument against “cheaper” cheeses is that they are “pumped with water”, an interesting theory in light of the actual data. These numbers aren’t perfect because I’m omitting the weights of vitamins, minerals and sterols - but the weights of those would be small and the differences negligible.
Grande Whole Milk Mozzarella
Serving size: 28g
Fat: 6g
Carbohydrate: 1g
Protein: 5g
Total: 12g
Moisture: (28g-12g): 16g
Percentage moisture (16g/28g): 57%
Sorrento Whole Milk Low Moisture Mozzarella
Serving size: 30g
Fat: 7g
Carbohydrate: 1g
Protein: 7g
Total: 15g
Moisture: (30g-15g): 15g
Percentage moisture (15g/30g): 50%
The Grande cheese has significantly more water content than the Sorrento. It’s interesting to note that the Grande product is not branded as “Low Moisture”. That’s because mozzarella must contain 50% or less moisture to be labeled as “low moisture”. The Grande is technically “high moisture” (above 52%).
If you use Grande because you like the taste and performance, great. But stating that cheaper cheese are “pumped with water”… well, the data just doesn’t seem to support that.
Why? Grande loves to claim this, but nobody has ever explained why. Is it because it’s more watery and spreads over the pizza more easily?
I am not belaboring this arguement anymore…after 30 years in this business…our family and myself have tried them all…and one brand I would NEVER go with is Sorrento…ever. It is a big name with lackluster product. I am always comparing apples to apples since I need to monitor profitability…you will not find cellulose or heavy moisture collecting at the bottom of grande bags…I have with Sorrento and “some” private lables.
When I brought this to the attention of the Sorrento broker in my area…they HONESTLY told me that they could not compete with the quality of Grande…and I made the change.
Regardless of what’s written on a bag…the moisture burn-off is what it is…and here in the Burgh, burnt cheese is burnt cheese. Browning cheese is different than burning cheese and the taste is much different also. My only complaint about Grande is that it is not a selling-point anymore in our area…in fact all but two out of 15 competitors in my area use Grande.
Yes there are close comparisons to Grande…but we love Grande and YES it will take a few ounces more at equal cost in the end to match what we are doing cost wise with Grande.
After 30 years of profitability and success…we must be doing something right. What I find funny are the pizzerias that claim to use Grande but mix Grande with crap cheese thinking they are selling great cheese.
Less expensive way of being one of the 14 businesses using GRANDE on pizzas. If it were a deal-killing issue on my market, I would consider blending it and letting people know that we “use Grande Cheese” on the pizzas. Probably would also tell them that I blend with other brands to maximize the best points of each (the reason I would consider doing it).
I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to “pump” water into cheese without listing it on the label as an ingredient.
I tried samples of three Grande cheeses over the last two weeks, and while it cooks up perfectly well, it’s so mild you can barely taste it. I’m still waiting for the 50/50 so I can try it, but I’ve never found anything as good as my favorite warehouse-store mozzarella combined with provolone from a foodservice company.
People say Grande reheats better, but the cheapo cheese I use doesn’t dry out or burn when reheated. I don’t know what could make it better.
I’m just an amateur, but I’m making a lot of pizzas these days for my church’s cafe, so I keep trying new ingredients. I wish Grande was working for me, because I can’t get my favorite cheese delivered. I hope the 50/50 has more flavor than the other types.
As for blending, people over at the Pizzamaking forum say the only way to get flavor with Grande is to add other cheese to it.