Dairy Market R
Dairy Management Inc.
Vol u m e 2 4 | N o. 6
Overview
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June 2021
DMI | NMP F
Overall U.S. dairy-product demand appears headed back to pre-pandemic levels, and U.S. dairy exports have achieved near-record highs as a percent of U.S. milk
solids production during 2021 so far. Meanwhile, wholesale prices for butter, nonfat dry milk and dry whey in May were all higher than before the pandemic began, but cheese prices continue to struggle. However, capturing the state of dairy through data is unusually difficult at this moment, and will be for several months, as the industry is entering a series of months during which year-over-year comparisons are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruptions to dairy markets one year ago at this time. For example, U.S. milk production has been increasing, pressuring milk prices since early May, but year-over-year growth comparisons are somewhat misleading due to last year’s atypical seasonal production patterns. Similarly, year-over-year domestic fluid milk sales were down sharply this March and April, while commercial cheese use was up sharply in April.
Commercial Use of Dairy Products Larger than usual measured drops in domestic fluid milk sales during March and April brought year-over-year fluid sales down by almost 4 percent during February through April. The comparison, however, was against higher than usual fluid sales during the first months of the pandemic in March and April 2020, despite supply chain disruptions during those months. By contrast, domestic commercial use of both American-type and other cheese was considerably higher during February through April than during the same months in 2020, due in large part to year-over-year increases
Domestic Commercial Use
of more than 20 percent for both types of cheese in April. This was due, in turn, largely to a base effect, since domestic use of all cheese was significantly depressed in April 2020 as the pandemic registered its first full month of demand destruction in food service, and supply chains had not yet had time to redirect enough cheese to retail outlets. Allowing for this, the large April numbers for cheese indicate a recovery to close to normal consumption this year. As a broader indicator of this recovery, commercial use of milk in all products, both domestic and total, was generally
Feb–Apr 2021
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Feb–Apr 2020
2020–2021 Change
Percent Change*
-583 52 12 100 100 200 -19 1,959 144 726
-3.9% 5.6% 3.5% 9.5% 7.0% 8.0% -9.0% 5.0% 1.5% 2.7%
(million pounds)
Total Fluid Milk Products Yogurt Butter American–type Cheese All Other Cheese Total Cheese Dry Skim Milk All Products (milk equiv., milkfat basis) All Products (milk equiv., skim solids basis) All Products (milk equiv., total solids basis)
11,227 1,237 513 1,315 1,826 3,141 173 53,080 44,358 47,063 *adjusted for leap year
11,810 1,185 501 1,215 1,726 2,941 192 51,121 44,215 46,337