Jacking Cheese Yields

At:

http://www.dailydairyreport.com/data/ddr062209.pdf

you will find Al Levitt’s CME Daily Dairy Report, which states:

“Total cheese stocks reached their highest level since August 1985, according to USDA’s “Cold Storage” report released this afternoon. On May 31, total cheese inventories were 957.0 million lbs., up 9% from a year ago. Commercial American cheese stocks were 608.3 million lbs., up 7% from the same date a year ago, and the most in nearly five years.

Commercial butter inventories increased just 11.0 million lbs. in May, to 251.1 million lbs. This is the smallest May increase since 1999, and leaves stocks
7% below year-earlier levels, USDA says.”

Fair enough and 100% accurate as reported.

Obviously, a manufacturer of cheese wants to make as much cheese as possible while the farm milk price is low. Butter manufacturers can also build inventories by freezing butter.

However, there is something telling in the above information. Cheese requires a rather tight fat to protein ratio. Quality cheese can and is made from whole milk. If the milk is fortified with MPCs additional fat is requires to make the fat to protein ratio.

Hence the above numbers suggest a lot of cream is going into the cheese vat because the yield has been jacked up artificially with MPCs.

In spite of what NMPF is saying about imports of MPCs, the evidence suggests they and their member co-ops are misleading both the public and dairy farmers.