Total cheese output (excluding cottage cheese) was 881 million pounds in August-3.5% above year ago but 0.1% below July’s production. Italian type cheese production (mainly mozzarella), at 366 million pounds, surpassed American type cheese production (cheddar / colby / jack) at 354 million pounds in August. The Italian cheese category totals were up 5.9% from year ago, while American type cheese production was up 2.1%.

Butter production was reported by USDA NASS at 102 million pounds, 0.6% above year ago, but 8.4% below July’s.

Production of dry milk powders was up in August compared with a year ago, and some shift back to nonfat dry milk from an earlier bump up in skim milk powder production, was noted.

August production of nonfat dry milk was 120 million pounds, up 12.1% from year ago. Skim milk powders at a mere 15.1 million pounds, were up 41.2% from year ago after being 63% higher in July.

Whey products were mostly lower in August as dry whey production totaled 81.9 million pounds, down 0.8%. Whey protein concentrate production totaled 35.3 million pounds, virtually unchanged from a year ago. Lactose productin for both human and animal use was 78.7 million pounds, up 26.7%.

In the frozen products division, production of lowfat products increased while regular products containing more cream decereased. Regular hard ice cream production, at 76.5 million gallons, was down 3.5%. Lowfat ice cream production totaled 40.2 million gallons, up 11.2%. Sherbet production was down 12% and frozen yogurt at 6.46 million gallons was down 11.7%.

On the other hand, regular soft yogurt production, plain and unflavored, was up 11.8% at 361 million pounds.

NFDM inventory down 17.6% in August

After increasing through June and July, nonfat dry milk inventories plunged 17.6% lower than year ago by the end of August despite production above year earlier for the month.

Block Cheddar at $1.77/lb Friday

While butter lost a couple cents this week on the CME (at $2.1850/lb Friday), block cheddar advanced to $1.77/lb at midweek and held the advance through Friday. Barrels haven't budged at $1.7350. Virtually no trading actually occurred, however.