The Unexpected Rise of Cooper Sharp
How one humble cheese brand completely took over the cheesesteak game
Cooper Sharp / Photograph by Gene Smirnov
Welcome to Cheesesteak 2.0. A new era of Philly’s iconic sandwich is upon us, and to celebrate, we’re taking a look at the movers and makers redefining the genre. Go here to dig in to our full coverage.
More than a decade ago, on November 23, 2013, Danny DiGiampietro posted a photo to Instagram that would forever alter the “cheese” in cheesesteak. The image showed a spread-eagled roll, smeared with Whiz, on the griddle at the original Haddonfield location of Angelo’s. Alongside the bread, a heap of shaved beef, veiled in overlapping ivory squares of Cooper Sharp, which DiGiampietro shouted out in the caption.
“My wife and I used to make cheesesteaks in the house with it, and I always told her, if we ever open a spot, I’m gonna use Cooper Sharp,” says DiGiampietro, who first got to know the cheese on his old bread delivery route, dropping loaves to Cooper carriers like Pal Joey’s Deli and Primo’s. “I just used it because I liked it.”
But it wasn’t until Angelo’s relocated to Bella Vista in 2019 that Cooper, thanks to the shop’s massive social media following, would crack the cheesesteak consciousness and ascend from an upgraded American cheese — it gets its sharp, nutty edge from aged cheese blended into the mix — to a cachet-carrying emblem of quality. It’s requested by name the way you’d request Grey Goose in a martini, and graces flagship steaks from Passyunk (Mike’s BBQ) to Manayunk (Sunshine Sandwich Shop) to the rarefied air of Rittenhouse Square (Barclay Prime). “Even little diners out here in Blackwood, New Jersey — Cooper Sharp on the cheesesteak,” DiGiampietro says. “I never thought it would blow up the way it’s blown up.”
While it has the obsessive passion of a new love affair, Philly and Cooper Sharp have actually been in a long-term relationship since early in the 20th century. Originally founded in New York, Cooper moved its headquarters here in 1918, and though it’s now owned by Wisconsin’s Schreiber Foods, distance hasn’t diminished the connection. Calling from Green Bay, brand manager Michelle Spoerl says, “Cooper has just always been a regional brand in the Philadelphia and Northeastern market, but in the last five years, the restaurants, creators, and chefs on social media sharing content with Cooper in it has really brought elevation and awareness to the brand.”
According to Spoerl, Cooper sales are up 30 percent year over year in the region. If you narrow that further to just Philadelphia, it’s 40 percent. And Cooper’s savvy marketing department knows how to play ball. Last year, the brand decked out Super Bowl TD-scorer and certified Exciting White Cooper DeJean in merch for its Looking Sharp campaign. DiGiampietro laughs: “All they gave me was a hoodie.”
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Published as “Looking Sharp” in the April 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
