Members who track the federal milk price reports have probably already clocked this, but it is worth saying plainly: Class III and Class IV prices are both running well above twenty dollars a hundredweight heading into the fourth quarter, continuing a summer rally that has held longer than a lot of market-watchers expected. For a good number of our farmstead and small-plant members, this is the best revenue picture they have seen in years.
Wholesale cheese prices have moved with it. Cheddar blocks and barrels on the spot market have both climbed through late summer, alongside firmer butter and nonfat dry milk prices. The driver, as best we can tell from the data our members forward us, is tighter domestic milk production running into steady demand — fewer cows on the ground nationally, flat output per cow, and buyers who have not slowed down even as the number climbed.
What tighter supply actually does to your planning
If you are a producer, this is the kind of year where it is tempting to lock nothing in and just ride the number. We'd gently push back on that. A few members who lived through the last price spike, back in 2022, told us the mistake wasn't riding it too long — it was assuming the milk-cost side of their own make sheet would stay this friendly indefinitely. Feed costs have been more forgiving lately, which is a real part of why margins look this good, but a milk price this strong rarely holds without some cost catching up to it eventually. If you haven't reworked your per-wheel cost model since spring, this is a reasonable week to do it, and our course on pricing and margin for specialty cheese walks through exactly that math, from raw milk cost through packaging to what a wedge actually needs to sell for.
If you are a buyer or a retailer, the read is different. Firmer milk prices tend to show up a few weeks later on your invoice, and members who buy on standing orders have told us they are already seeing modest increases pass through from smaller producers who can't absorb them the way a larger plant can. That is not a reason to renegotiate a relationship you value — it is a reason to ask your supplier directly what is driving the number, rather than assuming a markup you can push back on. Most of the producers we talked to this month were glad to walk a buyer through it when asked plainly, and a few said they wished more of their accounts asked instead of just grumbling about the invoice.
A good year is still a year to plan in
None of this is dramatic yet, and that is worth saying too. It is a good year on the milk side, a manageable year on the cost side so far, and a market that has rewarded members who kept their margin math current rather than the ones who guessed and hoped the number would keep going up. Strong years are also, historically, the years members are most likely to skip the planning work, because nothing feels urgent when the check clears. We'd rather you do the math now, while it's a genuinely useful exercise, than in six months when a softer quarter makes it a stressful one.
If your own numbers need a second look before the fourth quarter, that pricing course is open for enrollment now, and the membership directory is still the fastest way to find a producer or distributor who will actually talk you through what's moving on their end of the business.
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.