Production in our region was first mentioned in 1813, when a Ms. Kaul in Schöneckenstrasse in Groß-Gerau brought the hand-formed cheeses to the market in Mainz and sold them there. With her death, however, the supply of the market fell asleep again, until the "old bull", also a Gross-Gerauer, regularly offered his hand-formed cheese on the Frankfurt market again. The hand cheese enjoyed great popularity and soon found many imitators. By 1850, production had already reached a significant level, with domestic production. The demand rose steadily, and as more and more sales markets were opened up, the number of manufacturing companies grew. A man named Heinrich Sauerwald, who worked for the peat cutters there, came to Dornberg from Eschollbrücken and ran a business with butter, eggs and himself with his wife prepared hand cheese, occasionally also poultry and vegetables, and brought it to the market in Mainz. The situation in Dornberg soon became too tight and so he bought a plot of land in Groß-Gerau, which later became the “Zum Mainzer Rad” inn in the Mainzer Street has arisen. Here Sauerwald built the first large-scale cheese dairy. It became the first actual cheese factory in the village. However, the war of 1870/71 tore all his hopes and plans apart and he had to stop his company because it was no longer able to cope with the demands of the rapid development. In 1862, Michael Huss founded a cheese factory in today's Schützenstrasse 24 , which was continued by his son-in-law Hermann Horst. Today, 5 generations later, the Horst cheese dairy is still family-owned. The Käserei Horst will probably be the oldest still producing sour milk cheese dairy in the Federal Republic of Germany. The expansion of sales areas and markets required the mechanical production of cheese from 1870. In 1880 a kneading machine was installed to process the cheese mass, which was a great relief In 1893, the innkeeper and inventor Peter Traiser II succeeded in producing a cheese molding machine that delivered 4,900 pieces of cheese. This machine, which was initially operated with the hand crank and was later driven by motor power. He developed this machine further over the years. It produced 10,000 well-formed cheeses per hour. Up until World War I there were 26 cheese factories in Groß-Gerau. More emerged in the immediate vicinity. Mainz was the main hub for hand cheese. From here, the hand cheese went to the surrounding cities, up the Rhine to Alsace, Metz, the Rhineland and overseas, mostly to America, England and Russia. Hand cheese played a major role in the supply of food for the military. Due to the First World War, the subsequent French occupation of Mainz and the subsequent economic crisis, the number of companies was reduced to 10-12, after the Second World War There were only 5 businesses left. While in the 19th century the local businesses had to fetch their raw material sour milk quark (cheese mat) from the vicinity of farmhouses and in the further course of the years from far away with the horse and cart, today we only receive our raw material to a limited extent Partly from Hesse, otherwise from Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. Production is still partly based on traditional recipes, but with modern machines: mixing, grinding, conveying and molding systems. Sour milk quark that has ripened several days in advance is brought into the sweat room after mixing and shaping into hand cheese. There the cheese matures for 2-2½ days and, after cooling, is coated or sprayed with spreadable broth to which the red smear culture is added, matures for another 1-2 days and is then packaged. The result is a healthy, low-fat, low-calorie and almost cholesterol-free food.