Cooper Sharp has conquered cheesesteaks. Is it a pizza cheese now?

Every day, the kitchen at Cacia’s original South Philly bakery goes through 20 pounds of shredded Cooper Sharp cheese, according to third-generation owner Joe Cacia. Not for cheesesteaks — the most widespread use of the white American cheese — but for pizza.

Cacia’s started selling Cooper in 2024 on a square pepperoni pie that layers shreds of cheese and a drizzle of Mike’s Hot Honey. Cacia put it on the menu at the urging of his cousin Joey, who called him on the phone in bewildered excitement upon discovering the sweet-yet-spicy-yet-sharp-and-creamy flavor combo.

The $27.50 pizza is already among the old school Italian bakery’s bestsellers, requiring Cacia and his crew to bake between 10 to 15 sheet pans worth per day.

“I immediately knew that it would be something people love,” Cacia told The Inquirer. “As soon as people hear Cooper [Sharp] cheese nowadays, you have their attention.”

Cacia’s isn’t the only pizza shop experimenting with the ultra-melty cheese as a topping. Across the United States, Cooper Sharp’s appearance on pizza menus has grown by just under 140% since 2022 , according to data the brand provided from Datassential. (The market research firm used artificial intelligence to scrub restaurant menus in the U.S. to determine how the cheese was being most used most commonly.)

Cooper Sharp’s growth puts it on the path to be served at 1 in 4 restaurants nationwide by 2030 based on Datassential’s projections. The boom comes as the regional American cheese has been catapulted to stardom as the topping of choice for Philly’s new school cheesesteaks.

Cooper Sharp already dresses up sandwiches at the Michelin-honored Angelo’s and Del Rossi’s pizzerias, infiltrated the no-frills John’s Roast Pork, and won the loyalty of actor-turned-cheesesteak maker Bradley Cooper, who listed the cheese as part of his quintessential cheesesteak in a 2023 Entertainment Tonight interview.

If Cooper Sharp can conquer cheesesteaks in a city that is notoriously finicky about what toppings are allowed on its signature sandwich, who’s to say it can’t top pizza?

» READ MORE: From 2023: Why cheesesteak connoisseurs melt over Cooper Sharp cheese

“If you asked me five years ago if Cooper Sharp would be a pizza cheese, I might’ve said, ‘I don’t think so,’ said Michelle Spoerl, Cooper Sharp’s brand manager. ”And now as we’re seeing this momentum, I’m like, ‘Absolutely.’"

Outside of Philly, takeout pizza purveyors are switching to Cooper Sharp to maintain kitchen efficiencies while combating rising mozzarella prices. Plenty of pizza shops already use Cooper to make burgers or imitation cheesesteaks, said Spoerl.

But the trend runs much deeper in and around the City of Brotherly Love, where pizzaiolos are choosing Cooper Sharp for both its melt and deep name recognition.

Cooper Sharp was created in 1893 by I.C. Cooper, a former banker from New York who moved the brand’s headquarters in 1918 to Philadelphia, where it languished as a cult-favorite deli cheese. Green Bay, Wis., dairy manufacturer Schreiber Foods acquired Cooper Sharp in 1985, though the brand hasn’t lost its distinctly Philadelphian touch, recently inking sponsorship deals with the Philadelphia Union and Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean.

» READ MORE: Say Ch33se: Eagles star Cooper DeJean teams up with Cooper Sharp cheese

Unlike most other American varieties, aged cheddar is added to Cooper Sharp’s processed mix to produce a higher fat content — and thus a tangier cheese.

“The taste of Cooper is so much better,” said Cafe Carmela co-owner Joe Maglio, who uses the cheese on both pizzas and cheesesteaks at his Northeast Philly and Huntingdon Valley restaurants. “It’s just creamier and silkier.”

Cooper Sharp’s origins as a pizza cheese begin with the South Philly Pizzaz, a hyperlocal pie whose originators don’t even use it.

Former Celebre’s Pizzeria owner Ronnie Celebre created the Pizzaz inside his 1536 Packer Ave. restaurant sometime in the 1970s as a means of grilled cheese-ifying pizza, said current owner Michael Spina, who took over Celebre’s in 2000 after working there as a teen. The Pizzaz — which can be made in both circle and square form — layers slices of regular white American cheese and tomatoes with a sprinkle of a banana peppers.

» READ MORE: The Celebre twins: How Richie Ashburn and a South Philly pizza shop became ‘family’

The Pizazz is one of Celebre’s most popular pizzas and has largely remained a South Philly delicacy until recently, when odes starting popping up on menus in Northeast Philly and University City. Most of them opt for Cooper Sharp over other white American cheeses.

Cafe Carmela started serving their version of the Pizzaz upon opening in Northeast Philly in 2020. The restaurant’s version is inspired by owner Joe Maglio’s South Philly-raised wife Anne Marie, who would take him on dates to Celebre’s. Maglio’s recipe makes some slight tweaks: He adds a sprinkle of shredded mozzarella to the top to prevent the pizza’s base slices of Cooper Sharp from burning. The cheese melts much quicker than the dough can cook.

Cafe Carmela’s Holman Avenue location sells about 100 Pizzazes a week, Maglio said, though most Northeast Philadelphians tend to add pepperoni or sausage. The Cooper “gives it such a different taste,” said Maglio. The inspiration goes from a grilled cheese made with Kraft singles to one with white cheddar.

The owner of Tempo, a new sports bar and nightclub in University City, has a similar story. The restaurant’s limited pizza menu includes a Detroit Style Pizzaz with Cooper Sharp that draws on owner Steve Masterson’s upbringing in Scranton, where American cheese is the default on pizza.

Cooper Sharp can be temperamental to work with, Masterson said: If you undercook the pizza, the dough can get gooey while the cheese has a perfect melt, but if you overcook it, Cooper Sharp burns to a crisp. Still, Masterson can’t imagine doing it any other way.

“I’ve loved that cheese since I was a kid,” he said. “Why else would I use any other brand?”

» READ MORE: The 23 best cheesesteaks in Philadelphia

At Testa Rossa in Glen Mills, Cooper Sharp makes an appearance not as a novelty, but as a part of the Italian American restaurant’s plain cheese pie.

Culinary Director Merick Devine started experimenting with the cheese at Rosalie in Wayne, the other Italian restaurant he oversees in Fearless Restaurants’ Restaurant’s portfolio. There, he found that just a few 1/16-inch thick slices make for the perfect white pizza base.

“Because Cooper Sharp melts so gooey, it creates something kind of like a [cheese] sauce in the oven ... It was what we were looking for the entire time,” Devine said.

The thickness, according to Devine, matters more than anything else. If he were to use a standard deli-style slice, “suddenly it becomes too American cheesy.”

At Testa Rossa, Devine starts making every cheese pizza by slapping slices of Cooper Sharp atop the dough. Marinara follows, then layers of provolone and mozzarella cheeses. The result, according to Devine, is something akin to a blush sauce.

Already, said Spoerl, Cooper Sharp is starting to cash in on its new pizza cheese cache. For the first time this March, they exhibited at the International Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, handing out samples of their recently launched cheese sauce.

But for Masterson, the format doesn’t matter as much as the name itself.

“It’s like the only cheese that people recognize by brand,” he said. “There’s value in that.”