The first federal price report of the year landed this week, and it gave members something to talk about at the counter: wholesale Cheddar blocks moved up again, alongside butter, nonfat dry milk, and dry whey. That builds on a forecast update from federal analysts late last month, which pointed to higher milk production for the prior year alongside softer cheese and butter prices — a combination this week's numbers only partly bear out. On paper, a firming block market reads as a decent way to open 2025.
On the phone with us, it reads differently. A firmer block price and a healthier margin projection are real money for a producer selling into commodity channels, but they do very little for a farmstead operation whose costs are set by the fuel truck and the feed bill, not by a monthly government report. Several members who called this week wanted to talk about heating a cave and a barn through a cold snap on a propane contract that reset in December, not about the number in the trade press. Both conversations are legitimate. They're just not the same conversation, and we try not to let one stand in for the other in what we tell you.
Propane itself is part of why. Wholesale propane has been running higher this heating season than it did a year ago, and the retail price a small operation actually pays for a January delivery tends to sit well above whatever number shows up in a national energy report. If your cave, your barn, and your make room all draw off the same tank, a cold snap can turn a manageable winter into an expensive one almost overnight, regardless of what cheese is doing in the wholesale market that same week.
Two markets, one make sheet
If you sell primarily wholesale, the firmer block price is worth watching alongside your input costs for the next few pricing cycles — a favorable milk price forecast does not lock in a favorable margin if fuel and feed move against you at the same time. If you sell primarily direct, the federal number is closer to background noise; your price case gets made at the counter and in your own cost sheet, not on the board. Either way, this is the season to be honest with yourself about where your actual pressure is coming from before you decide what to change.
We've heard from a handful of small, single-family creameries this winter that the arithmetic on heating a cave through January has gotten harder than it was two years ago, even with cheese prices holding up. That's consistent with what regional reporting on feed and energy costs has been showing going into the year: input relief has been uneven, and some of it hasn't shown up for smaller operations at all. If that's your situation, please reach out to Membership & Outreach before you make a decision you can't undo — there may be more room in a payment plan or a program adjustment than you think, and we would rather have that conversation in January than in April.
What we're watching
We'll keep tracking the weekly federal price reports and flag anything that looks like a real shift rather than routine noise. In the meantime, if your January planning depends on knowing where your true break-even sits, the federation's cost-tracking worksheet (available through your member portal) is a better tool than watching the block market from the sidelines. And if you haven't looked at your cave's heating costs against last winter's numbers yet, now is a better week to do that math than March.
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.