Cheezies are a brand of

cheese puff Cheese puffs, cheese curls, cheese balls, cheese ball puffs, cheesy puffs, or corn curls are a puffed corn snack, coated with a mixture of cheese or cheese-flavored powders. They are manufactured by extruding heated corn dough through a die ...

snack food made and sold in Canada by W. T. Hawkins Ltd. The snack is made from extruded cornmeal covered in powdered cheddar cheese, and sold in distinctive red-and-white bags.

History

The snack was invented after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

James Marker James Marker (c. 1922 – May 2, 2012) was an American-born Canadian businessman who invented Cheezies, a brand of cheese curl snack food popular in Canada. Marker also established the Belleville Aerodrome, a private airport, in 1961. Marker wa ...

of Dayton, Ohio and W. T. Hawkins. The pair were living in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

when they discovered a method, by trial and error, of extruding cornmeal, casting it into fingerling shapes, then deep frying it in vegetable shortening and sprinkling it with cheddar cheese. Production was moved to

Tweed, Ontario Tweed is a municipality located in central-eastern Ontario, Canada, in Hastings County. History The Municipality of Tweed is an amalgamated municipality comprising the former Village of Tweed and the former Hungerford Township and former Elzevi ...

in 1949 where the recipe was perfected and the W. T. Hawkins Ltd. plant established."Canada loses Cheezie Whiz", ''

The Calgary Sun The ''Calgary Sun'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is owned by Postmedia. First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running tabloid-size newspaper ''The Albertan'' soon after it was acqu ...

'', QMI Agency, Friday, May 4, 2012 Production was moved to a factory in

Belleville, Ontario Belleville is a city in Ontario, Canada situated on the eastern end of Lake Ontario, located at the mouth of the Moira River and on the Bay of Quinte. Belleville is between Ottawa and Toronto, along the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor. Its populat ...

in 1956 after fire destroyed the original plant in Tweed. They concentrated exclusively on Cheezies after dropping other snack foods from their portfolio. The snack has been produced in the same facility ever since and continues to be sold across Canada. Marker's original machine is still used to manufacture Cheezies at the company's plant, as of 2012. Marker remained vice president of the W. T. Hawkins Company until his death in 2012. On September 19 2016, a storage warehouse for W. T. Hawkins in Belleville also was destroyed by fire.

Competition

Old Dutch Foods Old Dutch Foods Inc. is a manufacturer of potato chips and other snack foods in the Midwestern United States, New England and Canada. Their product line includes brands such as Old Dutch Potato Chips, Dutch Crunch, Ripples, Cheese Pleesers and Re ...

produced two similar products in the 1970s, cheese-flavoured and barbecue-flavoured "Crunchys". They later were discontinued and Old Dutch continues to produce the Crunchys in two cheese flavours.Old Dutch Foods:Crunchys
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References

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External links

That's Cheezies with a Zed
CBC radio documentary on WT Hawkins
Why Hawkins Cheezies Are Canada's Most Delicious Under-The-Radar Snack
Nostalgic look at Cheezies by Isabel B. Slone Updated May 7, 2021 Canadian snack foods Brand name snack foods