Cheese

Cheese is the largest single use of milk and the most valuable traded dairy product. World production was roughly 26 million tonnes in 2024. The European Union is by far the largest producing region at about 10.7 million tonnes, close to half the global total, led by Germany, France, Italy, and the Netherlands; the United States is the largest single country at about 6.5 million tonnes, concentrated in Wisconsin and California.

In the United States cheese is not just an end product, it is the price-setter for the milk most farmers sell. The CME spot cheese market, 40-pound Cheddar blocks and 500-pound barrels, feeds directly into the Class III milk price formula under the Federal Milk Marketing Orders. When block and barrel prices move, Class III milk moves with them, which is why cheese trading sits at the center of US dairy risk management. The CME Cheese (Cash-Settled) future settles to the monthly weighted average of those block and barrel prices.

Trade is dominated by Europe, with the US a fast-growing exporter. The five biggest exporters by value, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, and the United States, generate well over half of world cheese export value, while Japan is the standout large buyer outside the EU. Consumption keeps rising structurally as incomes grow, making cheese one of the few dairy products in secular demand growth even as fluid-milk drinking declines.