A new twist on an old rivalry has emerged between Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears fans, with Bears supporters now wearing oversized cheese grater hats.Lifelong Bears fan Ryan Tinkoff has embraced the large foam cheese grater hat as his game day accessory of choice. The creative headwear represents a playful jab at the iconic cheesehead hats worn by Packers fans for decades."Anytime I saw the cheeseheads, I'm like, we got to get a little bit clever," Tinkoff said. "So I actually got this last year, went to the game this past December, and that's when I first wore it, and I never thought that it was going to blow up to what it's now."The cheese grater hats are produced by Houston-based Foam Party Hats, whose family owner says they developed the concept a couple of years ago to tap into the century-old Bears-Packers rivalry. Manuel Rojas says the company has sold 7,000 of the hats this season alone, making it their most successful product ever."Our best selling product in history, what can I say?" Rojas said. "We are just so happy about everything that's going on."Business significantly increased after a Bears player wore one of the cheese grater hats following a victory over the Packers this year. Rojas sees the trend as an opportunity for all NFL teams to develop their own unique fan accessories."So what I make of the tradition is, why let you guys keep all the fun?" Rojas said. "Why don't we come up, every single team can come up with something similar to it and everybody can enjoy it."However, Packers fans remain loyal to their original cheesehead tradition. Caina Auben, a Packers supporter, believes Bears fans should stick to using cheese graters in the kitchen."I think they should just keep the cheese graters at the restaurants because, I mean, we've kind of been grading them for many years," Auben said.The original cheese wedge-shaped hat dates back to the late 1980s and has become synonymous with Wisconsin culture. The Green Bay Packers purchased the cheesehead company a couple of years ago, recognizing the enduring popularity of the iconic fan gear.Chrysta Jorgensen, Director of Retail Operations for the Packers, confirms that cheeseheads remain one of their top-selling items annually. She views the hat as an endearing and iconic symbol recognized worldwide."We as the Green Bay Packers have the cheesehead because we're proud of our team and that we love our fans wearing something that represents what they're proud of, being from Wisconsin," Jorgensen said. "Being a fan of the Packers. We're often emulated, never duplicated. We have the cheesehead and we're very proud of the fact that our fans love it."This story was reported on-air by Charles Benson journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.Its about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for TMJ4 on your device.Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.Report a typo or error ...read more read less