Maytag is a blue cheese produced on the Maytag Dairy Farms outside of Newton, Iowa, the former home of the Maytag Corporation. In 1938, Iowa State University developed a new process for making blue cheese from homogenized cow’s milk instead of the traditional sheep’s milk. In 1941 production of the cheese was started by Frederick L. Maytag II and Robert Maytag, grandsons of the founder of the Maytag appliance company, Frederick Louis Maytag I. The milk for the cheese initially came from a prize-winning herd of Holstein cattle that was established by E. H. Maytag, a son of the Maytag founder.

The process for making Maytag Blue Cheese was discovered and patented by two Iowa State University microbiologists, Clarence Lane and Bernard W. Hammer. Roquefort, another type of blue cheese, had been made for hundreds of years in Europe, but attempts to manufacture a similar cheese in the United States had thus far been unsuccessful. Difficulties encountered in making these types of cheeses produced a less than satisfactory product, and quality control would have been disastrous.

Credits: Wikipedia