Markets & Management

The Coronavirus Pandemic certainly made its mark on the U.S. dairy industry last year, and it continues to influence dairy markets even now. The result of business shutdowns and stay-at-home  requests by local, state, and federal governments had mixed results on dairy sales. When food service, a major user of cheese and butter products, was severely limited last year, overall sales of  these products declined. However, with the dramatic shift in food service sales to retail sales, all major dairy products, including fluid milk, experienced periodic growth compared to 2019 in the retail sector. Each August, the USDA releases a spreadsheet that lists fluid milk sales data for the previous year by category back to 1975. That spreadsheet was published this week, and overall, the results are encouraging for at least 2020. Read More