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American Cheese Surplus Reaches Record High 398

Posted by BeauHD from the stinky-times dept.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there's a 1.4 billion-pound cheese surplus. "The glut, which at 900,000 cubic yards is the largest in U.S. history, means that there is enough cheese sitting in cold storage to wrap around the U.S. Capitol," reports NPR. Americans managed to consume nearly 37 pounds per capita in 2017, but that wasn't enough to reduce the surplus. From the report: The stockpile started to build several years ago, in large part because the pace of milk production began to exceed the rates of consumption, says Andrew Novakovic, professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University. Over the past 10 years, milk production has increased by 13 percent because of high prices. But what dairy farmers failed to realize was that Americans are drinking less milk. According to data from the USDA, Americans drank just 149 pounds of milk per capita in 2017, down from 247 pounds in 1975.

Suppliers turn that extra milk into cheese because it is less perishable and stays fresh for longer periods. But Americans are turning their noses up at those processed cheese slices and string cheese -- varieties that are a main driver of the U.S. cheese market -- in favor of more refined options, Novakovic tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. Despite this shift, sales of mozzarella cheese, the single largest type of cheese produced and consumed in the U.S., remain strong, he says. Novakovic also notes that imported cheeses tend to cost more, so when people choose those, they buy less cheese overall. The growing surplus of American-made cheese and milk means that prices are declining. The current average price of whole milk is $15.12 per 100 pounds, which is much lower than the price required for dairy farmers to break even.
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American Cheese Surplus Reaches Record High More

American Cheese Surplus Reaches Record High

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  • wrap around the U.S. Capitol (Score:3)

    by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @06:52PM (#57934280)

    "The glut, which at 900,000 cubic yards is the largest in U.S. history, means that there is enough cheese sitting in cold storage to wrap around the U.S. Capitol,"

    Awesome! The artist Christo merely wrapped the German Parliament in cloth. Wrapping the US Capitol in cheese would absolutely top that!

    Now, if we also have a surplus of bacon . . . we could also wrap it in that, and fry that bastard, and have lunch for the rest of the year!

  • Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rgmoore ( 133276 ) <glandauer@charter.net> on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @06:52PM (#57934290) Homepage

    The current average price of whole milk is $15.12 per 100 pounds, which is much lower than the price required for dairy farmers to break even.

    If an industry consistently produces more than consumers demand and has prices below break even, the normal market response would be for some of the producers to go out of business. The only reason they don't is because of government subsidies. There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

    • Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MerlynEmrys67 ( 583469 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:11PM (#57934392)

      If an industry consistently produces more than consumers demand and has prices below break even, the normal market response would be for some of the producers to go out of business. The only reason they don't is because of government subsidies. There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

      There is a very good reason why farmers are exempt from the normal laws of supply and demand... Same reason we use corn based ethanol that takes more energy to produce that the output energy as a fuel. That simple reason is... Iowa votes first

    • Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:22PM (#57934448) Journal
      Its hard work to ramp up and ramp down farms and the needed generational skills.
      Most normal nations do all they can to keep their farms productive and producing so their nations will never face food shortages.
      Some decades see a lot of extra food.
      Productivity is good. Farmers on the land, been productive is good.
      Needing to find money to import food is not good.

      • Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @08:34PM (#57934808)

        Its hard work to ramp up and ramp down farms and the needed generational skills.
        Most normal nations do all they can to keep their farms productive and producing so their nations will never face food shortages.

        ... and other countries have no subsidies at all. New Zealand has none. Do you think they are starving?

        Subsidies are driven by politics, not by "preventing hunger".

        The American Electoral College, which magnifies the power of small rural states, means that our system of subsidies is especially stupid. Even European farm subsides look sensible when compared with ours.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AHuxley ( 892839 )
          New Zealand has a currency problem. Their currency is so low they can export to the world. Thats very different for the USA.
          European farm subsides keep out US products and services using terms like "chemicals" and "health".
          Its very smart to keep a nation in food for decades.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 )

          You say these things now but your tune might change mighty fast in the event of regional weather disaster or some kind of blight that causes a large number of crops to fail. These things have happened in the past. Producing an over abundance of food means that we don't starve when this happens. You are correct the policy to not maximize economic efficiency because that is not what its about. Its about insurance.

          It absolutely is about preventing hunger. It is also becoming a political foot ball, where on

      • Most normal nations do all they can to keep their farms productive and producing so their nations will never face food shortages.
        ...
        Needing to find money to import food is not good.

        The world has changed. It used to be shipping food was expensive and wasteful. Shipping is now so cheap and reliable it is much less important to grow all your own food.

        It used to be the case that farmers didn't produce enough food for everyone to eat well. We now produce enough food that everyone could eat a nutritious diet of more than 2,000 calories. So producing enough food is no longer the problem, it's moving food to the people who want it.

        With these changes, it no longer makes sense for each country

      • Its hard work to ramp up and ramp down farms and the needed generational skills.

        A few decades ago, the US spent a buttload of money buying out something like 50% of all dairy farms because there was too much milk being produced and the prices were too low for the farmers to make a living.

        Not too long after that, of course, the remaining dairy farmers started dosing their cows with rBST to gain a competitive advantage - and now we're back in the same situation.

    • Re:Supply and demand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:30PM (#57934512)

      Keeping a stable food supply is one of the highest priorities of any sensible government on the planet, actually.
      Problem is there are sometimes low demands for some things, which leads to issues that tend to spiral out of control if not managed properly.
      This is one of those cases. It has been horribly mismanaged.
      The shitty quality cheeses produced are also an issue.

    • The government effectively subsidizes all manner of things through direct subsidies, tax breaks, and a number of other little schemes. The farmers are just ensuring that they get theirs too. It's all utterly pointless as well as you wind up with these exact kinds of situations where there's too much surplus of one thing, but a shortage of another.

      Some people like to act as though all of the farms would die without the subsidies, but that simply isn't true. It would be precisely those which are the least

    • Re:Supply and demand (Score:4, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:58PM (#57934634) Journal

      There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

      There's a very good national security reason:
      We want to keep sufficient food production in the United States so that if we are at war, or just if there is a global food crisis, we won't have people starving to death.

      That doesn't mean we necessarily have to fund milk producers, but it makes sense to ensure you have enough good food production. It's better than buying another stealth F-22 Raptor, and much cheaper.

      • There's a very good national security reason:

        That's a reason but I don't think it's a great reason any more. Farmers worldwide are so productive and shipping is so efficient that it's really unlikely we'll have a world-wide famine. Or any famine, for that matter. It's quite safe to just depend on remote farmers.

        I won't even get into asking what sort of security spending that money elsewhere could buy.

        It's better than buying another stealth F-22 Raptor, and much cheaper.

        I don't know about that. A Raptor costs what, $100 million? That's a lot but an order of magnitude or two less than farm subsidies (measured in the tens

        • That's a reason but I don't think it's a great reason any more. Farmers worldwide are so productive and shipping is so efficient that it's really unlikely we'll have a world-wide famine. Or any famine, for that matter. It's quite safe to just depend on remote farmers.

          I really don't believe you at all.

    • There is indeed a good reason (Score:5, Informative)

      by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter@[ ]ata.net.eg ['ted' in gap]> on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @08:07PM (#57934668) Journal

      There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

      There is a reason, and it's a damn good one: To regulate supply and stabilize pricing.

      Think about it: have you ever had to worry about food, really, really worry about it? A moderate price increase due to increasing oil prices at the turn of the century is the closest our country has ever come to a "food crisis". There has never been a serious food shortage or price inflation for food in the US for as long as I've been alive.

      It used to not be that way. You can go back to the 70s, and read about how rapidly fluctuating food prices [livinghistoryfarm.org] created quite a political stir, as evidenced by the April 1973 cover of Time Magazine [time.com]. If you study the data on this page [ourworldindata.org], you can see both how food prices (particularly beef) stabilized after 1980, and how the average worker has seen a steady increase over time in the amount of food that can be purchased with their wages.

      That has been the primary purpose of the US Farm Bill: to encourage, subsidize, and regulate the food market, stabilizing pricing and providing ample food supply. Because when there's oversupply, people complain about food going to waste. When there's a lack of supply, people riot and governments collapse. Which would you really prefer?

      • There's no good reason for the government to constantly exempt farmers from the normal law of supply and demand.

        There is a reason, and it's a damn good one: To regulate supply and stabilize pricing.

        Think about it: have you ever had to worry about food, really, really worry about it?

        I entirely agree. There is no agricultural economy anywhere in the world that does not require government intervention to maintain a stable business environment. It is the nature of the beast. Industrial agriculture is vulnerable to the vagaries of nature, and have characteristics that no other economic activity possess - it is an essential primary producer, it is tied to seasonal cycles by nature with naturally fixed production cycles, it has large capital inputs that must be recouped on an annual basis, a

    • Amen. Why in the world do we need a cheese stockpile?

  • I will be glad to help (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lije Baley ( 88936 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @06:53PM (#57934308)

    I love cheese, fancy or not. But it's expensive. Quit hoarding, lower the price, and I'll eat it! Dairy product boom and bust is nothing new in the U.S. When I was a kid, dairy was like some kind of strategic item, with practically a command economy, government subsidies always coming and going. Our neighbor (farmer) got in and out of the dairy business every few years, following the subsidies. In fat (ha ha) years, the government was giving the stuff away.

    • Re:I will be glad to help (Score:5, Interesting)

      by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:20PM (#57934438)

      I made a trip to the UK a few years ago and found quite a lot of really fucking good cheese of all kinds and varieties for very affordable prices. Over here, anything other than the fundamental basics for cheese are a small fortune. It seems to me our Dairy industry is pretty dysfunctional and I suspect government subsidies are discouraging them from innovating in the context of their surplus milk.

    • Re:I will be glad to help (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:23PM (#57934460)
      The subsidies stem back to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. That's when Americans realized that OMG it's possible for the country not to produce enough food to feed everyone. Consequently, the government enacted a system of subsidies to assure there's always overproduction of food. An oversupply would normally crater the market price, so the government buys all that food at a fixed price (high enough to keep the farmers in business). Then resells the food to the public at a lower price.

      That's why corn ethanol and high fructose corn syrup exist. Due to this system, the country grows more corn than it consumes. Consequently the government has to figure out things to do with the excess corn. It becomes foreign aid, feed for cattle, corn ethanol, and high fructose corn syrup. This is why those reports about beef costing us $x per pound in subsides doesn't really mean that we would save $x per pound if we ended the subsidies for cattle feed. The cost to grow that extra corn is a sunk cost [investopedia.com]. If we stopped using the excess corn for feed, that doesn't mean we get our money back. Its cost would just be distributed to other things we do with the excess corn - corn we send as foreign aid would cost us more, and ethanol and HFCS prices would go up. The way it's set up now, if farmers have a bad corn crop, all that happens is some cows go hungry instead of people going hungry (in fact those cows which can't be fed will probably be slaughtered to produce beef).

      This is also why we we pay farmers not to grow anything - so their land is ready and available to be turned into cropland in case existing cropland should be decimated by disease, pestilence, or another dust bowl. If we didn't pay the farmers, they'd sell the land and it would be used to build condominiums and other things that you can't eat.

      So the subsidies are basically insurance. We're paying extra to guarantee there's always an oversupply of food. We could kill the subsidies and the average price of food over time would be lower. But some years we wouldn't produce enough food to feed everyone and food prices would spike.

      • The subsidies stem back to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. That's when Americans realized that OMG it's possible for the country not to produce enough food to feed everyone.

        This is nonsense. The dust bowl affected mostly Oklahoma and Kansas, and did NOT lead to food shortages. The problem during the depression was OVER PRODUCTION and FALLING PRICES. And the purpose of the subsidies was an attempt to pull land out of production, and raise prices to fight deflation.

        This was part of the NIRA [wikipedia.org], which was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1935.

      • That's when Americans realized that OMG it's possible for the country not to produce enough food to feed everyone.

        Really? People have experienced famines since the dawn of time. The last century or so has been the first time in human history that we grew enough food that famine isn't a realistic possibility any more.

        Now that I think about it, I wonder when the last US famine was? I've heard asserted that we grow enough food now that there's no reason to expect any human to ever starve again unless there's some political cause for a food shortage. If that's so, and I find it plausible, that's an historic achievement.

    • In fat (ha ha) years, the government was giving the stuff away.

      I do not like green eggs and the gubment cheese... [youtube.com]

  • And? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Maybe if the cheese was of a better quality like you get elsewhere in the world it would sell better?

    Also, cheese isn't the only thing to do with excess milk - butter and milk powder are globally traded commodities.

    Do the Chinese buy up US-made infant formula like they do Australian and New Zealand formulas?

    Also interesting to note that the article talked about consolidation of diary farms, but what it omitted is that on a global scale, the average US dairy farm is still what would be considered a hobby far

  • Part of the answer (Score:3)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:03PM (#57934364) Homepage
    If Americans aren't eating processed cheese slices or string cheese, the Feds should be discouraging dairy farmers from making it. Sell off what they've got in storage to supply the market, and get the farmers to make other cheeses instead, such as Swiss, Cheddar, Muenster and Jack. Also, get them to make more yogurt, as that's very popular now especially among the health conscious and those trying to lose weight.

    • Re:Part of the answer (Score:5, Informative)

      by BlazeMiskulin ( 1043328 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:44PM (#57934568)
      Farmers don't make the cheese. They raise cows that produce milk.

  • True mozzarella is made from buffalo not cow's

    ignorance is not an excuse

    Mozzarella was granted Protected Designation of Origin status by the European Union in 1996

     

  • Another Trump comment (Score:4, Informative)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:09PM (#57934388)
    And Trump criticizes Canada's supply management which is aimed to discourage overproduction. Jesus.

  • Results (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:15PM (#57934404)
    These are the results of corporate America not responding quickly enough (and maybe doubling down against) to demands by Americans for healthier foods. I feel badly for the small farmers that are adversely impacted because they basically produce what the larger buyers order them to produce. I recall something the President of Kraft Foods said in the 1960s. He said that these preservatives were made for the space race and to keep food fresh for astronauts on long trips. He specifically said these preservatives are not safe for long term consumption. It just goes to show Corporate America doesn't give a flying fuck about you and me past the money we give.

  • It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:16PM (#57934412)
    Just stop f'ing subsidizing stuff. The end result is always uneconomic, unintended consequences. And, "American cheese" just sucks, anyway. If they're going to build a cheese bank, make it aged Cheddar or Colby or Gouda (IMHO).
    • It's a surplus of cheese made in America, not a surplus of "American" Cheese....

      And you can largely thank our government for having a consistent food supply. The government heavily regulates what's grown and how it's grown via those subsidies. Before that we had over farming and farmers growing too much of the same, profitable crops until they market saturated and collapsed....

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msauve ( 701917 )
        Whoosh. It's subsidized. They make the cheapest cheese they can to get the subsidy, without regard to taste or quality. Eat it.

    • Your sig is rather on topic in this case, though rather wrong. (Celine's first law? She should stick to singing.) We have an ample food supply in the US and won't starve in the case of embargo or war. It is, in fact, national security. Quite frankly I'd rather 'waste' tax money to stabilize food prices and ensure US food production capacity over most other spending. Fortunately, the cost is not so great on the national scale of things - $20 billion dollars per year. Worth it.

      Yes, I'd rather not put ethanol

  • Time for a world record Fondue!

  • Cheese? (Score:3)

    by tquasar ( 1405457 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:25PM (#57934482)
    Could it be that the product isn't cheese? The label says "pasteurized process cheese food". Send it to any cheese producing region in the world and see how it's received by the locals. My mom made grilled cheese sandwiches when I was a child but I wouldn't eat the stuff today. Local stores carry a wide variety of cheese with different flavors and textures.

    • Re:Cheese? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by smoot123 ( 1027084 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @08:57PM (#57934940)

      The label says "pasteurized process cheese food".

      You're being too generous. IIRC, it's "pasteurized processed cheese food product". I don't know how a food is different from a food product and I'm pretty happy that way. I'll just stay away from the nasty stuff.

      (Well, except I have a recipe for a Velveeta-based chili cheese dip. It's appalling but really tasty after a few beers.)

      • I don't know how a food is different from a food product

        I dunno? Maybe the food is cheese-like stuff in a packet and the food poduce is the awesome stuff you can spray out of a can.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by quenda ( 644621 )

      Could it be that the product isn't cheese?

      Exactly. American "Cheese" is not cheese. Even in the US itself, it cannot be labelled as cheese, but must be called "processed cheese", "cheese-based food" or "edible congealed rubber-like product".

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • That's only because it's a blend of other cheeses. It's not "not real cheese", it's several real cheeses. I'm rather partial to Land o' Lakes White American, which I believe is a cheddar and muenster blend. Not at all rubbery or plasticy like your typical yellow cellophane-wrapped single.

  • Government cheese! I've made a few omelets from it back in the 80s. The stuff was pretty decent. Do they still distribute it?

    Excellent story about it at Planet Money: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/08/31/643486297/episode-862-big-government-cheese

  • Then why (Score:3)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:41PM (#57934556)

    Then why is anything better than spray-cheese so bloody expensive?

  • ... to produce more tasty meat. Oh, sorry, I did forget that feeding natural food to living beings is kind of a no-go in the US. But seriously, you should at least once taste local specialties like the "Tiroler Milchkalb" in Austria, those are calves actually fed with cow milk, and you can taste the difference.

  • TFS Didn't say cheese. It said "American Cheese". That's the problem. No one wants to eat American Cheese.

    I've got some lovely French cheese in the fridge at home.

    • You’re right about the summary, but what the (Vox) article really said is American [wikipedia.org] (along with “cheddar, Swiss and other cheese varieties on record”), which is much worse than just “cheese from the U.S.” Go ahead and check that Wikipedia article, and enjoy the mouth-watering pictures and description: “American cheese cannot be legally sold under the name (authentic) "cheese" in the US. Instead, federal laws mandate that it be labeled as "processed cheese" [...] or "cheese

  • WIC, food stamps, SNAP, or others...give it to them.

  • Living overseas, I cannot find American Cheese or a decent Cheddar ANYWHERE!

    Send all that Land o Lakes American and Cabot Cheddar Cheese overseas! I need to show these locals how Americans get fat (and what good, stick-to-your-ribs mac-n-cheese is)!

  • I for one can't wait for the "more refined options (Score:3)

    by melted ( 227442 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @09:05PM (#57934972) Homepage

    I for one can't wait for the "more refined options". There have been some good domestic cheeses appearing. There's no reason Wisconsin couldn't produce cheeses that are easily on par with the famous French varieties for half the price. I'm looking forward to $6/lb Wisconsin "Epoisses". :-)

  • Imagine how many gigabags of Doritos this much cheese could be made into!

  • Cheese is a kind of meat.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Nothing beats gooey melty AMERICAN cheese on a burger. No other cheese turns into such a perfect melty sauce like the processed stuff.

    • You tell me that a mornay sauce made with cheddar and beer doesn't beat that.

      • it's 100% a texture thing. melty saucy goodness. lots of cheeses have more flavor but for pure moist saucy satisfaction you need the processed stuff in this application.

  • MAGA (Score:5, Funny)

    by SimonInOz ( 579741 ) on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @10:52PM (#57935316)

    Clearly, we need to make America Grate again.

  • And dont preach market forces at me when US farms are subsedisd. We do that in the EU and... Glut happens.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Before about 14 years old I probably drunk more milk than water because milk was delicious and inexpensive. Then the public media campaign about eating healthy, counting calories and fats began. And that must have hit everyone's milk consumption badly. I mean, one cup of 2% milk, that's 8 ounces, contains over one hundred calories, some fat and even cholesterol. And I can't get buy with only 8ounces of fluid when eating a meal. So eventually I switched to diet soda, and then lemonade, unsweet iced tea and s

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