Sargento is taking its cheese snack portfolio on the road. The Plymouth, Wis.-based family-owned company announced a year-long exclusive sponsorship of country artist Hannah Harper's String Cheese Tour, a partnership that grew out of Harper's viral song celebrating everyday parenting moments — and a shared fridge full of Sargento products.
The deal puts Sargento's snack lineup at the center of a national touring program that runs through the 2026 holiday season and into 2027, with Harper's next stop at the Backbone Bluegrass Festival in Strawberry Point, Iowa on July 24.
The Snack Lineup on Board
Sargento outfitted Harper's tour bus with custom graphics and a fully stocked cooler carrying Sargento String Cheese® snacks, Balanced Breaks® snack kits, and Sargento Mighty Bites™ lunch snack kits — the kind of grab-and-go, single-serve formats that have become staple impulse categories at the convenience-store forecourt. The partnership is a visible showcase for the brand's snack segment, which competes directly with other portable dairy and protein snack options on c-store shelves and in refrigerated grab-and-go coolers.
"I've always loved that Sargento is a family-owned company that believes in making high-quality, natural cheese. It's what I feed my own family at home and exactly what I want to fuel our crew on the road," Harper said. "Having one of the first brands that believed in me join this tour makes this partnership incredibly special."
Why It Matters for the Channel
For convenience operators, the Sargento–Harper tie-up is worth watching because it puts a national marketing spotlight on the exact SKUs that perform well in refrigerated snack sets. String cheese, portion-controlled snack kits, and natural cheese snacks have posted consistent category growth as shoppers seek higher-protein, lower-prep alternatives to traditional roller grill and dispensed-beverage impulse purchases. NACS data has consistently shown refrigerated snack and dairy categories outpacing overall in-store growth as operators refresh their back-of-house cooler mix.
Erin Price, General Manager at Sargento, framed the deal in broader brand terms. "This partnership is about much more than string cheese on a tour bus," Price said. "It's about celebrating family, supporting an artist we've believed in from the beginning and creating memorable moments for fans across the country."
The activation includes surprise ticket giveaways across both brands' social channels, "Fan of the Week" recognition for engaged followers, exclusive content and merchandise, and additional limited-edition drops planned through the holiday season. That sustained consumer-engagement calendar keeps Sargento's snack products in the social-media conversation well beyond a single tour stop — a marketing cadence that can reinforce retail sell-through at any channel carrying the brand's grab-and-go formats.
Founded in 1953, Sargento employs more than 2,500 people and reports multi-billion-dollar net sales. The company credits itself with introducing pre-packaged sliced and shredded natural cheese to U.S. retail — a category innovation that shaped how dairy snacks are merchandised across grocery, mass, and convenience today.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
