Wholesale cheddar has had a good September, and by the time this posts, most of you have already noticed it in your own contracts. Barrel cheese hit a fresh all-time high in the middle of the month even as block cheese pulled back a few cents the same week — two grades of the same commodity pointing in opposite directions, which is exactly the kind of split that makes a forecast hard to trust. Layer on federal production data showing fewer milking cows and flat output per cow, and you've got a tighter supply picture pushing under a price that's already been climbing for weeks.
That combination, tighter supply and a firmer price floor, is the one members have been asking us about all month. It's a better problem than a glut, but it's still a planning problem.
Two numbers, one contract
If you buy cheddar for a case or a program rather than making it yourself, you're watching this from the other side. A rising benchmark price is good news if you locked in early and bad news if your contract renews this quarter. We've heard from a few retail members this month who are re-quoting fall orders they'd assumed were settled in July, because the spread between block and barrel widened enough to change which one their supplier is actually pricing off of.
For producers, the read is more straightforward but not simpler: a tighter cow count means the milk under your own cheddar is worth more, which is good, right up until you need to buy any of it from someone else. Several farmstead members told us they're now pricing hay and pricing milk in the same conversation, because both lines moved this quarter, and neither moved in the direction their spring budget assumed.
What we'd actually watch
Wholesale price reports are backward-looking by definition — they tell you what already happened to supply, not what's coming next. The number worth tracking week to week is the daily spot trade in blocks and barrels, because that's what's setting the tone for the contract renewals landing on desks right now, and because block and barrel don't always move together. A barrel record with blocks softening in the same week is a real signal, not noise, and it's worth asking your buyer or your co-op which one your own pricing formula is actually tied to.
We don't have a dues or member-fee angle in this one — production costs and hay prices are your business, not ours to estimate for you. What we can do is keep flagging the federal releases as they land and translate them into "what does this mean for your fall case or your fall contract," which is the question we keep getting on the member line.
If your cooperative or your buyer hasn't walked you through how this month's spread between block and barrel changes your Q4 numbers, that's a conversation worth having before the next renewal, not after it. And if you're not sure which grade your own contract prices off of, that's a one-email question worth asking now rather than assuming.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.