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Swiss-American is a family business, and still is...

The Weil family immigrated to the United States from Germany in the late 1930's. About a year after arriving in St. Louis three brothers, Joe, Max and Stephen partnered with their first cousin, Karl, to establish Swiss-American Incorporated in 1938.

The business began in specialty food; incorporating cheese, meats, preserves, and other deli specialties into its product line. Joe's sons, Ronald and Jerry, joined the company in 1970, after the death of Max. In 1973 Joe bought Karl out leaving one of the founding partners. In 1977 Ron and Jerry Weil received full ownership of Swiss-American from their father. Jerry became President and Ron became Vice President.

When Swiss-American was founded, the company dealt mostly in specialty foods and gift-packs. Max and Joe did the majority of the designs for the gifts. The first gift pack was a checkerboard stuffed with sardines, cheese and a cracker, which was sent oversees during World War II. Swiss-American started importing products from Europe in 1940 and has licenses dating back to that time. This was a time when the business enjoyed growth, but it was not until the mid to late 70's that Swiss-American hit a true growth spurt by moving more directly into the distribution and packaging of domestic and specialty cheeses.

In the early 1980's, Swiss-American started cutting and wrapping imported and domestic cheeses for the grocery retail industry; currently cutting and wrapping over 300 varieties of cheeses and stocking over 500 varieties of import, domestic and deli specialties daily, shipping to more than 4000 super market delis weekly.