Deli specialty cheese has been running roughly 8 percent ahead of last year on both dollars and volume through most of 2025, according to national retail tracking, which is the kind of number that sounds uniformly good until you look at where the growth is actually landing. It isn't spread evenly across the case. Goat's milk cheese has been a standout performer this year, Hispanic and Italian styles are leading category growth in deli specialty, and industry trend coverage has been describing a broader "global cheese renaissance" — shoppers reaching for international and artisanal styles over familiar domestic staples. Meanwhile, some longtime favorites, including brie, blue, and havarti, have actually slowed.
That unevenness matters most right now, in the six or so weeks when a lot of members are finalizing what the case looks like through the holidays. A wholesale buyer or a shop owner planning purely off last year's sell-through risks over-ordering categories that have cooled and under-ordering the ones actually pulling shoppers in this year.
What's pulling, what's stalling
For members selling direct to a retail case, the practical read is this: styles with a clear geographic or cultural story — a specific region, a specific milk, a specific tradition — are the ones getting the growth this year, more than broad category labels like "soft-ripened" or "aged cheddar" on their own. A wedge that comes with two sentences of story attached to it seems to be outperforming a wedge that doesn't, even within the same style category. That's consistent with what several of our retail members have told us anecdotally this fall: signage and staff who can say something specific about a cheese are selling more of it than signage that just states a price per pound.
None of this means the slower categories should disappear from a case. Brie and blue still move, and a case built entirely around this year's trend risks looking thin to customers who came in for something familiar. The useful move is proportional, not wholesale: give the growing categories a little more shelf and story space than last year's plan called for, without abandoning what already sells reliably.
Where to take this before the holiday rush
If you're rebuilding your case plan for November and December, the Counter Culture: Retailing course covers exactly this kind of category-mix decision, including how to read your own point-of-sale data rather than national averages when the two disagree — your regional customer base may not track the national trend exactly. It's a shorter course than most of our credential pathways, built for exactly this seasonal planning window.
If your creamery sells through distributors rather than direct to a counter, it's worth raising these category trends with your rep now, before their own holiday order is locked. A distributor planning routes and volume six weeks out, which is most of them this time of year, has more room to adjust an order today than in mid-November. The Membership & Outreach Committee can also connect members who want a second opinion on a category mix with another member who's already run the numbers this season.
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.