Ritz Wants You To Believe Its Crackers Can Cut Cheese
In 2012, YouGov BrandIndex deemed Ritz crackers "the most popular snack food in America” (via Insider), and for many people, Ritz crackers are just another part of everyday snacking life. We put these delectable little crackers on our charcuterie boards, make them into festive chocolate-covered candy (per Food Network), and enjoy them with peanut butter.
But have you ever paused before crushing up your Ritz crackers for a chicken casserole and really taken the time to examine its features? Probably not. After all, the idea of quitting cooking midway to stare down a Ritz sounds a little, well, weird. But that's exactly what the company behind the crackers was asking TikTok to do when it posted a video that sent Ritz lovers into a tizzy.
Somewhere between the time a Ritz makes it from your hand to your mouth, you have surely noticed its most defining feature — its ridges. Well, according to the company's video, those little scallops aren't just there to make Ritz the belle of the cracker ball. According to the brand, Ritz crackers' ridges allegedly make it a useful tool. For what, you ask?
Ritz swears its crackers are for slicing cheese
If you find yourself scrolling through Ritz's TikTok looking for recipe inspiration, you'll eventually come across a video that may not be suited for all audiences. In this TikTok, a lone hand pulls out a Ritz Cracker. Seems innocent enough. But as the video continues, the disembodied hand turns the cracker longways and moves the ridged side of the Ritz up and down a slice of Swiss. According to the company, this is what your Ritz crackers were made for — to cut cheese.
A few users in the comment section believed Ritz's claim, but their voices were nearly lost in an overflow of those who didn't buy it. Many TikTokers simply posted "no" underneath the video. And one user pointed out that, even after the hand supposedly sliced the cheese with the side of the cracker, the Swiss had to be manually pulled apart. Ritz responded to this by writing, "It loosened it tho." However, even if Ritz crackers really can cleanly slice cheese in two, other users pointed out, cracker, or no cracker, cheddar is flimsy enough to simply pull apart.
So ultimately, cutting cheese with a Ritz cracker might be more of a hindrance than a help. Now, with all the facts in front of you, you may be thinking that Ritz's story just doesn't make sense. But did Ritz really just roll out of bed that morning and decide its crackers could make a really cool cheese slicer?
Is this all just one big Ritz conspiracy?
Before Ritz was using its crackers to make TikTok users' veins pop, the savory snack had to be invented. According to Food Timeline, the National Biscuit Company (aka Nabisco) wanted to sell a cracker that could beat out its salty competition. And at the beginning of the '30s, they found it. Unlike other crackers, Ritz was not a soda cracker but a butter-based one, which made it stand out to consumers. But while the outlet notes that the Ritz's buttery taste and crisp texture set it apart from the usual cracker crowd, it doesn't report that the cracker turned heads because its ridges made it a state-of-the-art cheese slicer.
But, to be fair, this is not information from Ritz itself. In fact, the cracker company doesn't reveal any of its history on its website. So there's still a chance, however slim, that Ritz Crackers really were designed to be mean lean cheese-slicing machines. Not to mention, anchors on KSEE24 who tried the hack live revealed that, with some persistence, the cracker actually can slice a piece of cheese in half. So if that's the case, what's the final verdict? We'll leave you with this. After a TikToker claimed Ritz was making things up, the company itself said, "But we're RITZ, we're allowed to."