The Average American Eats 42 Pounds of Cheese a Year, and That Number Could Go Up
Dairy processors are planning facilities across the US to meet surging demand.
Is there such a thing as too much cheese? Producers across the US are betting billions of dollars that the answer is no. America’s per capita cheese consumption has more than doubled since the government began keeping track in 1975, to about 42 pounds a year—more than all the butter, ice cream and yogurt combined. Facilities for making cheese account for more than half of the $8 billion in US dairy-product projects slated to come online from 2023 to 2026, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.
Great Lakes Cheese Co. is spending more than $700 million on a New York plant that will double the company’s milk consumption. Lactalis USA is making a “big investment” to add feta capacity to a California facility as more at-home cooking and a viral baked-feta pasta goose demand for the brined cheese. Sargento Foods Inc., which just formed a partnership with Mondelēz International Inc. to package bite-size cheese with Chips Ahoy! cookies and Teddy Grahams in portable snack packs, recently updated two Wisconsin plants. “You’d be hard-pressed to walk around any of our facilities and not trip over an ‘Under Construction’ sign,” says Rod Hogan, Sargento’s innovation chief.