Cheese Update 10/2

Chicago Mercantile Exchange prices for this week below. Remember – Block is natural cheese, Barrell is processed cheese. Basically we have been watching block cheese increase week over week since late August when the Government announced another round of purchases for the Food Box program. The price gap between block and barrel kept growing, a very dangerous sign but Barrel cheese was also increasing. 2 weeks ago barrel cheese stalled and went flat while block cheese continued to increase, not a good sign. That week uncertainty prevailed over the entire industry as everyone waited to see whether Block prices would shrink to meet the barrel price or if barrel cheese would increase to meet block cheese. This week block cheese stalled and Barrell cheese is leaping to match it. What does that mean, block cheese is in short supply and expensive so buyers moved some purchases over. Milk is high but not astronomical. Hopefully $2.60/LB or so will the ceiling for this rally. There's a new cheese plant opening in Michigan this month which is expected to help with supply. Let's hope it works. I guess at this point you could say cheese is pandemic resistant.