Market News

Cheese and butter stocks increase

Butter and cheese barrels held steady, blocks increase a half-cent and nonfat dry milk fell 4 cents on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange dairy markets on Friday. Class III futures gave back much of what they had gained earlier in the week.

For the week: cash chees barrels unchanged, blocks up 1.5 cents, butter gained a quarter-cent and nonfat dry milk lost 4 cents. Class III futures for February down 19 cents, March gained a penny, April increased 12 cents and July added 7 cents.

 

There is more milk being produced across the country and most of it is going into cheese. The monthly Cold Storage Report from USDA shows just over a billion pounds of cheese in the nation’s warehouses at the end of January.  That is 2 percent more than at the end of December and 3 percent more than a year ago.  American-type cheese stocks increased 1 percent for the month to 632 million pounds compared to 630 million a year ago.

Butter stocks jumped 41 percent in January to 148 million pounds, 3 percent more than at the end of January in 2014.