Original Cheesehead Factory of Foamation

My family loves to travel. It doesn’t matter whether it’s traveling to the next town over, to a new state, or out of the country. We like to experience new things. One of the interesting things we did recently was tour the Original Cheesehead Factory. Squid’s Girl Scout troop needed an outing, so I recommended this.

It is located pretty close to the Allen-Bradley clock tower in Milwaukee, and street parking was easy to find out front. Thanks to my husband’s love of Apple maps, we were the last ones to arrive, as Apple apparently thought we were interested in going to St. Francis instead. Is there some sort of rule that the organizer of these type of events ends up being the last to arrive?

Anyway, once we got in, we had the choice of taking the tour and creating our own cheesy creation, or just touring. We were in it for the long haul, so cheesy creation was a must-do (in my opinion).

We got to wear beautiful cheddar-colored aprons, and sat down to hear the history of the Cheesehead. Since I am not THAT old, it didn’t actually occur to me that the Cheesehead was actually invented in my lifetime. It’s one of those things I’ve seen for as long as I can remember…which apparently is the late ’90s, as that’s when they first started making the Cheesehead.

We got to see the very first Cheesehead, made out of the foam from a couch. We were sure to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ appropriately.

After the history of the Cheesehead, and the building itself, we moved on to the station with all of the variations of foam headpieces that have come since the original.

After naming off more food hats than you could possibly imagine (our guide actually challenged these 4th graders to name off something that they thought the company had NOT made as a hat yet…), we went on to the foam making stations. First, we got to fill our cups with the proper mixture of foam-making materials. The amount is different for each of the things we made, as some cheese items need to be flexible (the hats), and others need to be a bit more stiff (my cheesy star Christmas tree topper).

After that, it was into the molds for our foam to expand into. The mold is then clamped down and we wait. It certainly wasn’t a long process, but it was very fun to watch as everyone’s projects finished.

After it came out of the molds, we all went to a room with a table and trimmed off the extra foam. After that, we thanked our tour guide, checked out the gift shop, and ended by taking some ‘cheesy’ photos in the front. They had samples of some of their goofy hats, ties, and other cheesy things out to model with.

All in all, it was a very fun time. It was crazy to see how small the actual area where the foam products are made, as you see so many of the Cheesehead hats around! Definitely check this place out if you are lucky for something uniquely Wisconsin. You can find more information here.