Dairy consumption climbs to 64-year high

“Internationally, cheese and whey exports are bounding for record levels, and at home, Americans consumed 661 pounds of dairy products on a per capita basis in 2023,” says Corey Geiger, lead dairy economist for CoBank. 

This 2023 figure is reaching toward the highest level since 1959, according to data released in late November by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service. Back in those days, Americans consumed 672 pounds of dairy products as measured on a milkfat, milk-equivalent basis.

While consumption levels are similar in the 1959 and 2023 comparison, the dairy product mix today looks far different, Geiger notes. Consumers in the 1950s drank a lot more milk than they do today.

Cheese, please

“These days, cheese is the belle of the dairy ball,” Geiger says. 

In 2023, cheese posted its third straight record as the average American ate 40.5 pounds. Outside of the 2020 pandemic year, cheese consumption has posted annual records dating back to 2011.

Like the overall category, cheddar consumption hit a new benchmark when Americans ate a record 11.83 pounds per capita in 2023, Geiger notes. Despite slipping from its 2022 record, mozzarella still topped the cheese leaderboard at 12.45 pounds. 

While down slightly in recent years, the leading pizza cheese has bested cheddar for 14 straight years.

Cheese has been on a remarkable run for multiple generations. In 2002, per capita cheese consumption passed the 30-pound threshold for the very first time. Just 18 years earlier, it surpassed the 20-pound ceiling.

“Back in 1959, U.S. consumers ate just eight pounds of cheese,” Geiger explains. “In those days, beverage milk was the first purchase in the dairy aisle, with fluid milk consumption at 297 pounds per capita and fluid cream at 7.5 pounds.”

“Fast-forward to the present, and fluid milk sales have slid to a meager 128 pounds – this is the lowest point in USDA’s data set dating back to 1909,” he continues. “USDA no longer tracks fluid cream, instead rolling it into the overall fluid category.”

On the surface, one would surmise fluid milk still leads the dairy case. However, this is where dairy-product conversions are necessary, Geiger notes. 

In 2023, 100 pounds of milk yielded 11.24 pounds of cheese. This means the natural cheese category accounted for 360.7 pounds of dairy product consumption on a milk-equivalent basis.

Butter is back

Butter is another product which has seen a remarkable resurgence.

“Butter peaked at 18.7 pounds per capita way back in 1911 – in an era prior to refrigeration, and butter allowed Americans to store a stable food product throughout the long winter,” Geiger explains. 

“After this peak, butter stayed above double-digit sales through 1950,” he adds. “Then competition from margarine and the heart-health hypothesis further eroded butter sales. Butter hit the sales cellar in 1997 at 4.2 pounds.”

Then, new scientific research began suggesting saturated fats were important to human diets. Consumers began to respond, and per capita sales moved to 6.5 pounds – the highest sales total since 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was in the White House, Geiger says.

“On a milk-equivalent basis, it took 130 pounds of milk to make butter for the average American in 2023, as each 100 pounds of milk yields 4.98 pounds of butter,” he says.

Despite a slow downturn in sales, ice cream remains an important dairy product category, with per capita consumption at 11.7 pounds for regular ice cream and 6.2 pounds for the low-fat and nonfat frozen ice cream category.

“While the low-fat ice cream is just one pound off its peak, regular ice cream had its heyday back in 1975 at 18.2 pounds per capita,” Geiger says.

Dairy sales’ implications for farm

USDA also calculates how farm-gate milk is manufactured into dairy products. 

In 2000, 37.7 percent of the U.S. milk supply was manufactured into cheese, Geiger reports. This allocation grew to 42.2 percent in 2023. 

Butter experienced similar growth, from 16.3 percent in 2000 to 18 percent in 2023. These two categories use up nearly two-thirds of the U.S. milk supply on a milk-fat basis.

Farm-gate milk moving into the beverage category and frozen dairy products has been on a steady decline. 

In 2000, fluid milk used 18 percent of the milk supply. By 2023, this number was nearly halved at 10.1 percent. Frozen dairy products fell from 11 percent in 2000 to only 6.5 percent in 2023.

Yogurt is one other dairy product deserving mention. In 2023, Americans ate 13.8 pounds per capita of the high-protein dairy product.

“While an impressive figure, this metric is off about one pound from 2014’s 14.9-pound record,” Geiger notes. “This being said, yogurt is poised to be a growth category, as Americans are demanding high-protein foods, and the dairy product is now being introduced into more snacking bars and other on-the-go products.”

Cottage cheese has seen a resurgence in recent years, with Americans eating 2.1 pounds per capita in 2023. However, this is off from the 1972 high watermark of 5.3 pounds.

Fran O’Leary is a senior editor for the Wisconsin Agriculturistand Farm Progress. This article was originally published in Farm Progress on Dec. 16.