USDA’s “Commercial Disappearances” figures are out, for November 2009, and it shows a drop in American type cheese of 7.7%, when compared with November 2008. American type cheese is primarily Cheddar and Colby, not processed American plastic cheese.
For the period September through November USDA shows a drop in “Commercial Disappearances” of American type cheese of 1.4%.
USDA uses data submitted by processors. On the other hand, Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) provides scanner data of information passing past scanners in supermarkets, which is then fed through computers to IRI.
IRI reports American type cheese sales increased by 11.9% in the September through November period.
My guess is the IRI data is more accurate than the USDA data. Perhaps what is needed is a NCIS (for National Cheese Identification System) with edible chips, which would disappear with no added calories after its usefulness had been served.
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key words that bother me....
ReplyDelete"USDA uses data submitted by processors."
All this technology and our Government just keeps using the accruacy of human manipulation. A market can not exist without accurate information.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I shouldn't be surprised but it astonishes me that with all the lawsuits that are going on, they aren't backing even an inch away from grabbing everything they can. Is it getting it while the getting is good, or do they figure to win them all?
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of grabbing all they can, add two more to the equation:
ReplyDelete1) "They" want to hike a deduction from .10/cwt to .25/cwt to run a program (with a new name) that is totally ineffective.
2) "They" wanted to charge a $2.00 penalty for PI counts over 100,000. In speaking with our local supplier, it is amazing how they are out of milk hose because in her words, "Everybody is now having a high PI count". They were out of milk hose because every farmer was buying everything they could to keep the PI down. I asked her if they were doing this as a preventative measure and she said, "NO, the farmers said that they had HIGH PI counts." She even gave me their names, not that I asked. I am willing to take my own milk samples and pay for an independent analysis. I may even stop by and pick up samples from my neighbors.
Also looks like someone in California had to raise some cash last week to pay their farm milk bills. 33 million lbs of NFDM at an average price of $1.05? Thanks go out from all the dairy farmers. In the CDFA archives for the last five years there has never been a week when more than 22 million lbs were sold, and that happened only four times.
ReplyDeleteJohn--Do you have the letter that was in the 'Weed a year or so ago from Cornell that said PI counts were basically a waste of time?
ReplyDeleteRemember folks, the health dept does not do a PI count and you cannot get de-graded for high PI's. It's merely a quality
gimmic.
Rusty
John gave us the chart showing the huge gap between what the farmer gets and wholesale prices, so why do the processors need to "raise any cash" to pay the farmers?
ReplyDeleteWhat do they do with all this money?
huge salaries?
huge bonuses?
financing friends ventures?
gambling on the CME?
attorney fees due to illegal dealings?
Could someone please tell me what they do with the money?