It might be recalled that back in the other HRI thread, at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,6009.msg51517.html#msg51517, there was considerable discussion on the cheeses that HRI was using for its pizzas. It was believed at the time, based on articles that had been written about HRI and also information that was provided to me by an employee at HRI, that HRI was using three forms of mozzarella cheese. We speculated that maybe two of the mozzarella cheeses were a low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese and a whole-milk mozzarella cheese and possibly the third cheese was smoked mozzarella or maybe even scamorza. Recently, as I was conducting further research on HRI, I came across a section of HRI's website that deals with Hot Lunches for schools. It has been my experience in the past that it is fruitful to research school lunch programs because schools require specific nutrition information. That information often provides leads on details of the products provided to the schools.
HRI's Hot Lunch program is described at its website at
http://www.homeruninnpizza.com/hot-lunch-program/menu-and-nutritional-information. It will be noted that there are links to see the nutritional information for several of its pizzas sold to schools. For some reason, the only active links are the ones for the 12" sausage pizza at
http://www.foxriverfoods.com/cfm/prodinfo.cfm?itemnumber=397543, the 6" cheese pizza at
http://www.foxriverfoods.com/cfm/prodinfo.cfm?itemnumber=397546 and the 6" sausage pizza at
http://www.foxriverfoods.com/cfm/prodinfo.cfm?itemnumber=397545. The links to the pepperoni pizzas are dead. I tried to find copies of the nutrition documents for the pepperoni pizzas at the Wayback Machine but they apparently are not archived there. However, I was able to find an archived copy of the nutrition document for the 12" cheese pizza, at
http://www.foxriverfoods.com/cfm/prodinfo.cfm?itemnumber=397544.
If one looks at the description of the cheeses in the above documents, it appears that there are two mozzarella cheeses. They are described as follows: CHEESE:(LOW MOISTURE PASTEURIZED PART SKIM MILK, MOZZARELLA), PASTEURIZED PART SKIM MILK, CULTURES, SALT, ENZYMES. The differences between a generic low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese and a part-skim mozzarella cheese, apart from having different water contents (46.5% and 53.8%, respectively), can be seen at the NutritionData.self website at
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/28/2 and at
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/27/2. I have no idea as to why HRI would be using two forms of part-skim mozzarella cheese. It is also not clear exactly what HRI may be selling to schools. Two of the photos shown in the above links are to the Classic HRI pizzas. However, if one looks at the cheese ingredients lists for the current HRI frozen pizzas, for example, the 12" cheese and sausage pizzas, at
http://www.homeruninnpizza.com/frozen-pizza/details?alias=classic-cheese and at
http://www.homeruninnpizza.com/frozen-pizza/details?alias=classic-sausage, the cheese is described as follows: Mozzarella Cheese: Pasteurized part-skim milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes. If, as HRI says at its website, it is making its frozen pizzas just like its pizzeria pizzas ("Home Run Inn frozen pizzas use the same, exact recipes that we use in our nine Chicagoland pizzerias. The same all-natural ingredients. The same homemade sauces and sausage. Not a single additive or preservative"), then that would suggest that HRI is using only one mozzarella cheese on its pizzas, as discussed above.
Offhand, I do not recall seeing a part-skim mozzarella cheese in the supermarkets near me, only the low-moisture version. So, the low-moisture version is what most members may have to use on their HRI clones.
Peter
