Retail data coming out this summer keeps landing on the same shape: everyday, commodity-style cheese has been flat to soft, while specialty and artisan cheese keeps growing faster than the rest of the case. Small formats are doing a lot of the work — cubed and snack-size cheese in particular has had a strong run — and the charcuterie board, which retailers have been treating as a permanent category rather than a seasonal one, keeps pulling more specialty product onto shelves that used to be all bulk cheddar and mozzarella.
For members who make or sell in that specialty tier, this is a genuinely good stretch, but it's worth being precise about what "growing category" means at the level of one creamery's shelf position. A category growing overall does not automatically mean any given producer's SKU is growing with it. Retailers are adding facings for specialty cheese, and a lot of new facings are going to whoever already has distribution relationships, consistent supply, and a label that photographs well for the online version of the case. That's a distribution and packaging conversation as much as a cheesemaking one.
Where the growth is actually landing
The categories getting the most new facings right now are spicier and more flavor-forward cheeses — jalapeño, hot pepper, smoked, and herbed varieties keep showing up on buyers' "fastest growing" lists — alongside the aged cheddars and territorials that have always had a stable specialty following. If your product line skews toward a quieter, more traditional profile, that's not a reason to chase a flavor trend you don't actually want to make. It is a reason to make sure your merchandising and shelf talkers are doing more work, since a plain washed-rind wheel next to six flavored options needs a stronger reason for a shopper to stop.
Producers who sell direct — at farmers markets, through a farm store, or via a subscription box — are somewhat insulated from this shelf-space competition, but not from the broader cost pressure sitting underneath it. Record milk prices this year have come with record input costs to match, and a specialty premium only protects margin if it's actually being charged and actually reaching the maker rather than getting absorbed somewhere in the distribution chain.
What we'd suggest doing with this
If you sell wholesale, this is a reasonable month to ask your distributor directly where your product sits relative to the category's growth — not just whether unit sales are up, but whether your facings have kept pace with the category's expansion or whether you're holding steady while the shelf around you gets bigger. If you sell direct, it's worth testing whether your pricing has kept up with input costs rather than assuming last year's price list still makes sense.
The Membership & Outreach Committee has been collecting member pricing and merchandising questions all summer for a fall session on shelf strategy for small producers; if you have a specific question about your own category or region, send it in now so it can shape the agenda rather than getting added as an afterthought.
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.