Cheese Sales and Trends
Continuing a long-term upward trend, the total production of cheese in the United States reached a record high of 9.7 billion pounds in 2007, an increase of 1.8% over 2006. In fact, production growth occurred in all three major categories of cheese produced in the United States: American type, Italian type and “other natural cheeses.”
U.S. production of Italian-style cheeses grew more than 4% to 4.1 billion pounds. Mozzarella, which represents nearly 80% of this category, also showed a 5% growth in production. Production of American-type cheese showed a slight decrease of 0.9% over 2006. The production of cheddar cheese decreased by about 2.1% in 2007.
Given that there are more than 300 varieties of cheese sold in the United States, most varieties fall into the “other cheeses” category, meaning that they are neither Italian nor American types. Overall, this category continued its steady growth in 2007, increasing by 3% and reaching a new high of almost 1.7 billion pounds. Individual varieties also exhibiting steady growth included Muenster (up 8%) and Hispanic-style cheeses (up almost 5%).
Two states dominate U.S. cheese production: Wisconsin and California. In 2007, Wisconsin remained the largest cheese-producing state with its production of almost 2.5 billion pounds, representing 25% of the U.S. total, but California continued to close the distance, producing more than 2.2 billion pounds of cheese in 2007. Adding in Idaho, New York and Minnesota, the top five cheese producing states accounted for 71% of all U.S. cheese production in 2007.
Data from the most recent Census of Manufacturing in 2002 show that the total wholesale value of cheese and cheese products manufactured in the United States was $22 billion. That year, the cheese manufacturing industry employed 37,700 people with a total payroll of $1.65 billion. There were 501 plants reporting cheese manufacturing activities in 2002.
Cheese Sales & Consumption Overview
Cheese consumption continues to rise, prolonging its three-decade march forward. As consumers and foodservice find novel uses for old favorites and experiment with new varieties, 2007 cheese consumption reached a record high at 32.7 pounds per capita, a small (0.3%) increase over the previous record level set in 2006. The industry estimates that there are now more than 300 varieties of cheese available in the U.S. marketplace. By far the two most popular single varieties of cheese in the United States are mozzarella (10.9 pound per capita) and cheddar (10 pounds per capita). A small but growing category is Hispanic cheese, which continued a decade-long upward climb in 2007; but consumption levels remain modest at 0.63 pounds per capita. Per capita consumption of all Italian-type cheeses grew by 2.5% in 2007 to 14 pounds. Mozzarella per capita consumption grew 4% in 2007. In the American-style category, cheddar decreased by approximately 0.5 pounds per capita consumption in 2007, while consumption of other American varieties remained almost the same.
In supermarkets, cheddar, mozzarella and processed American (primarily processed cheddar cheese) led volume sales in 2007. Cheddar emerged as the leader in 2007 with 571.3 million pounds sold, followed by processed American with nearly 515 million pounds sold. Coming in third, was mozzarella at 286.4 million pounds sold. Note: The government provides figures on cheese consumption in per capita terms only; no total volume numbers are available. See the production chapter for total volume production numbers.
International Dairy Trade Overview
As world dairy markets tightened and world prices climbed higher, the U.S. dairy industry recorded its best year ever for exports in 2007, with export value jumping 63% to nearly $3 billion.
Looking at volume in metric tons, the total volume of U.S. dairy exports rose 9% to 1.21 million metric tons in 2007, with most of the increase driven by overseas demand for dairy ingredients, byproducts and dry milk products. Specifically, whey and whey product, dry, exports grew nearly 26.3% from 336,414 metric tons in 2006 to more than 424,831 metric tons in 2007, while cheese exports increased 40.2% to 99,540 metric tons.
In 2007, the United States exported 90.4% of its domestic dry whey production, 52.9% of the lactose produced and nearly 37.9% of its nonfat dry milk production. In fact, the world dairy markets have been so strong that USDA did not provide any export subsidies for dairy products under its Dairy Export Incentive Program (DEIP) for the second straight year.
Looking at imports, the total volume of dairy products coming into the United States stayed nearly the same, but nonfat dry milk imports experienced significant category growth, soaring by 116.5% from 798 metric tons in 2006 to 1,728 metric tons in 2007. Import volume of yogurt and other non-liquid cultured products also grew by 41%. Cheese imports — which accounted for 40% of the total value of U.S. dairy imports — actually declined in volume by 4.2% while rising in value by 7.6%.
The largest single category of imports in 2007 was cheese, where imports equaled about 4.5% of total U.S. cheese production. Butter import volume likewise equaled about 4.2% of U.S. production.
