News

January cheese production up fractionally on year

The USDA says cheese production during January 2020 was 1.103 billion pounds, up 0.4% from January 2019. Italian type cheese was reported at 482.235 million pounds, also up 0.4%, including a 17.1% jump in Romano, while American was pegged at 436.256 million pounds, down 0.7% on the year. Hispanic, cream cheese, and all other types of cheeses were up 15.4%, 6.9%, and 21.2%, respectively.

Butter production was 190.746 million pounds, an increase of 0.6% from last year.

Nonfat dry milk for human consumption was 173.216 million pounds, 0.3% higher, and skim milk powder totaled 51.533 million pounds, a jump of 29.5%.

Dry whey totaled 84.774 million pounds, up 4.4%, lactose for human and animal consumption came out at 87.506 million pounds, a drop of 21.6%, and the total for whey protein concentrate was 41.223 million pounds, 4.5% lower.

Regular ice cream was reported at 51.731 million gallons, a decrease of 3.4%, and the total for low fat ice cream was 30.240 million gallons, down 4.2%. Sherbet came out at 2.563 million gallons, 0.5% more than a year ago, and frozen yogurt totaled 4.406 million gallons, 14.4% less than last year.

The USDA’s milk production numbers for February are out on the 19th.