The snack was invented after the Second World War by James Marker of Dayton, Ohio and W. T. Hawkins. The pair were living in Chicago 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 in 1949 where the recipe was perfected and the W. T. Hawkins Ltd. plant established.

Production was moved to a factory in Belleville, Ontario 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.

Hawkins Cheezies although invented by an American are distinctly Canadian and have been for over 70 years.  In fact, Hawkins Cheezies was the first cheese-related dry snack in the world for another 20 years before Cheese Balls and Cheese Puffs became a thing.  Both of which are disgusting, soft synthetic rip-offs of James Marker’s ‘Hawkins Cheezies’.

I’m not alone in my love of Hawkins Cheezies either.  Maybe we were spoiled with the original Cheezie being our Cheezie of choice but I can’t stomach another Cheese snack calling itself a ‘Cheezie’ because it’s not.

Cheetos have been trying to be Hawkins Cheezies for 30 years and they can’t do it so they try to WOW us with Jalapeno and other flavors but they don’t have the same crunch.  The flavor is just a disguise for bad Cheezies.

Cheese Puffs and Cheese Balls are a joke.

Cheese popcorn sucks and other cheese snacks not mentioned here aren’t mentioned for a reason.

I don’t eat Hawkins Cheezies out of some weird Canadian snack fielty, either.  I just can’t find a dry Cheese Snack that holds a candle to the taste, crunch, and consistency of the world’s First Cheezie.

Hawkins uses real Canadian Cheese (i don’t know if that’s true but I trust the bag) and hasn’t screwed with the recipe for 75 years.  You don’t see ‘Balsamic Hawkins Cheezies because they don’t need a gimmick to trick you into buying their only product.  That’s how you know they don’t give a shit about all the Cheezie ‘knock-off’ noise and it’s a sign of market dominance in a world full of Cheezie pretenders.

I’d say ‘Change my mind’ but you can’t.

In a world full of people trying to be something they’re not. Hawkins remains the egoless Champion of Cheezies and there is nothing anyone can do about it.  Remember, it’s not a Cheezie unless it’s a Hawkins Cheezie.

Dean