Karoun Dairies, based in Sun Valley, CA, specializes primarily in producing traditional all natural Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Hispanic, Indian specialty cheeses and cultured dairy products.

Founded in 1992, Karoun is a family-run business. The company has continued to grow from creating hand braided String Cheese for local ethnic and specialty grocery stores, to providing wide variety of Mediterranean specialty cheeses and yogurt products with mainstream distribution.

The Braided String Cheese has a particular shape which makes it different from other types of white cheese. Often consumed as a snack, it contains black caraway (also known as nigella) seeds that are traditional to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking.

After the cheese strings are formed, they are twisted by hand into a variety of different-size “braids” – the largest weighing an impressive seven pounds.
String Cheese is a low-moisture style cheese. This style keeps well without refrigeration in a hot-climate region such as the Middle East. Traditionally, liberal quantities of salt would also help the preservation process, but for the US market, Karoun has considerably reduced the quantity of salt used.

Flavors are clean and milky with a delicate nuance of black caraway. It is recommended that the braid be unraveled (like angel hair pasta) for eating.