On Oct. 11, 1941, the first wheels of Maytag Blue Cheese were formed when production of the cheese was begun by Frederick Maytag II and Robert Maytag, grandsons of the founder of the Maytag appliance company, Frederick Louis Maytag I. The cheese originally came from a prize-winning herd of Holstein show cattle established in 1919 by E. H. Maytag, a son of the Maytag founder.

The process for making Maytag Blue Cheese was discovered and patented by two Iowa State University microbiologists, Clarence Lane and Bernard W. Hammer and remains in use today.