Millions of pounds of cheese are stored in Missouri’s underground ‘caves’ – here’s the wild reason why

No whey!

Deep within the confines of America’s heartland lies an underground bounty of more cheese than we know what to do with.

For years, rumors have swirled that a government-specific surplus of the dairy product is stored in a 3.2-million-square-foot cave system hidden beneath Springfield, Missouri.

Like Hangar 52 of “Indiana Jones” fame.

So is it true – or has the truth just fallen by the wayside gouda history?

The rumored limestone caves are quite real and were originally hollowed out for the mining industry, Cornell University agricultural economics professor Andrew M. Novaković told Food & Wine.

“Once mining operations were developed, the remaining cave system was recognized as an opportunity for climate-controlled storage with massive storage capacity and access,” he said.

“The caves have extremely high ceilings that are able to accommodate large tractor trailers and can reach millions of square feet, designed for large equipment to easily move in and around to dump their loads.â€

The 1998 disaster film Deep Impact even depicted similar caves in the Show Me State’s “soft limestone” to protect people from an extinction event-level meteor.

And news reports have shown that the government did, in fact, stockpile the key pizza ingredient in those types of facilities 40-some years ago.

It began when President Jimmy Carter allowed the dairy industry to go full speed ahead in dairy production around 1977, pouring $2 billion into the dairy industry over the next four years—which led to a cheese glut in the 1980s. .

To remove the subsequent full inventory, President Ronald Reagan created a “government cheese” program for those facing food insecurity, keeping most of it down in Missouri. It was something comedian Chris Farley’s character Matt Foley referred to when he raved about “living in a van down the river” in a memorable 1993 sketch on “Saturday Night Live.”

“A great variety of foods are stored in these caves because they are very suitable for climate control; the natural underground temperature is in the low 60s with moderate humidity,” Novaković added.

As for a 3.2 million-square-foot facility in Springfield that urban legend claims is Fort Knox for cheese in the 21st century, that’s also real — but harbors a government conspiracy.

Called Springfield Underground, the vast underground facility is used only by private enterprises – including Kraft Heinz and Dairy Farmers of America – to store their cheese and some other food products.

“The [US Department of Agriculture] is not a tenant of Springfield Underground, and we don’t have a pound of government-owned cheese,” Christina Angle, CFO for Erlen Group, owner of Springfield Underground, told Food & Wine.

However, the site is a big cheese when it comes to cheese.

“That being said, Springfield Underground is a critical part of our nation’s supply chain for many of our tenants’ products, including cheese,” Angle added.