New revelations uncover history of Missouri ‘cheese caves’

MISSOURI – Curiosity surrounding the mysterious Missouri cheese caves has resurfaced on the internet, and now the possible secrets and history behind these caves may have been unlocked.

Food & Wine Magazine shared new discoveries about the caves and their origin, including a possible connection to the storage of “government cheese” during over-production of the dairy product in the 1980s.

The caves located in Springfield, Missouri, at Springfield Underground were once limestone mines but were converted into a 3.5 million-square-foot cave system for surplus food storage, Food & Wine Magazine said.

The magazine noted Missouri for its reputation as “the Cave State” and its abundance of limestone that naturally formed over 7,000 caves across its southern region.

A professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University, Andrew M. Novaković told Food & Wine that Missouri’s caves have a natural underground temperature in the low 60s and moderate humidity, making them great for storing surplus food products.

In the 1980s, its rumored that President Ronald Reagan began using the caves for surplus cheese after President Jimmy Carter poured $2 billion into the dairy industry in 1977, causing overproduction.

President Reagan ultimately created the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program, which allocated blocks of government cheese to those facing food insecurity. This program also called for additional food storage, hence the “cheese caves.”

There is little know about the Springfield Underground and what all is truly stored in its caves. Despite this, the company is known for working with companies in the food industry like Kraft, Pepsi, and Vital Farms

Though the Springfield caves are assumed to be used for the storage of “government cheese,” the owners of the Springfield Underground attraction deny any involvement with the government food assistance program.

“The USDA is not a tenant of Springfield Underground, and we do not have a pound of government-owned cheese,” Christina Angle, CFO for the Erlen Group, told Food & Wine. “That said, Springfield Underground is a critical part of our nation’s supply chain for many of our tenants’ products, including cheese.”

The video above is from Feb. 9, 2022.

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