A busy day for USDA reports. Both cold storage and milk production were released Monday. The stocks for dairy products in December saw cheese adding 51 million lb. since the month prior with American-style cheese jumping 7.8 million lb. Total cheese stocks ended the year at 1.398 billion lb. Butter sits on 274 million lb. in cold storage, up 22 million lb. from November.
December milk production report continues to reinforce the growth in U.S. milk supply. U.S. milk production increased 3.1% over 2019’s level. The largest increase we have seen since 2014. We continue to grow the herd, adding 12,000 head from November and up 100,000 head for the year to 9.443 million head of milk cows.
The CME spot traded unchanged to lower. Butter gave back 4 ¼ cents to $1.36/lb., cheese was unchanged with blocks at $1.61, and barrels at $1.39 ¼. Grade A nonfat dry milk fell a penny to $1.16 ¼, and dry whey was unchanged at $0.54/lb.
Class III sold off – January unchanged at $16.16, February fell 50 cents to $15.96, and March fell 50 to $17.04/cwt. Class IV had January unchanged at $13.80, February fell 29 to $13.87, and March fell 30 to $14.42/cwt.
