James Leprino, ‘Willy Wonka of Cheese’ Who Revolutionized Pizza, Dies at 87

He turned a small family grocery store into a mozzarella empire, producing most of the cheese for American pizza chains like Domino’s, Papa Johns and Pizza Hut.James Leprino, right, in 1978, with Wesley Allen, then the president of Leprino Foods. “The company’s production of mozzarella is the envy of the U.S. cheese industry,” The Denver Post Magazine said in 1995.