MILK
Milk production has been holding steady generally over the past few weeks. With some of the cooler weather moving into areas, milk production is beginning to improve slowly. Milk continues to move from areas of surplus to deficit areas tightening spot milk availability and increasing prices. Spot milk is generally at class to $1.00 over class. There have been some reported offers running as much as $2.00 over class. Some areas report tightening milk supply as demand improves with manufacturers scrambling to fill orders of various varieties. Milk production continues to run better than expected based on what the estimates were at the end of last year. Culling has slowed and cow numbers are slowly increasing. Heifer availability at auctions is tight but farms are increasing cow numbers internally if they can. This will be a slower rate of growth limiting expansions, but it is growth, nonetheless.
AVERAGE CLASS III PRICES
| 3 Month: | $20.87 |
| 6 Month: | $20.94 |
| 9 Month: | $20.86 |
| 12 Month: | $20.80 |
CHEESE
USDA released the August Cold Storage report which showed declines in all categories. American cheese stocks declined 17.6 million pounds or 2% from July. Inventory remains 2% above a year ago at 842.4 million pounds. This is the first decline from July to August since 2019 but remains the highest inventory for August since 1985. Swiss cheese inventory declined 1.4 million pounds to 21.1 million pounds and 6% below a year ago. Other cheese inventory declined 19.1 million pounds to 620.3 million pounds but remains 6% above a year ago. Total cheese inventory was 1.484 billion pounds for the month, a decline of 38.1 million pounds remaining 4% higher than a year ago. The categories of other cheese and total cheese remains at record highs.
BUTTER
The cold storage report was friendly for butter with a significant decline of 32.5 million pounds for the month with inventory at 282.6 million pounds, a 10% decline. This decline was like last year with a similar decline back in 2015. The last time stocks were this low in August was in 2017. We can clearly see that stocks will end the year substantially below a year ago. This should continue to support the market.
OUTSIDE MARKETS SUMMARY
December corn gained 2.75 cents closing at $6.88.25. November soybeans declined 4.25 cents closing at $14.57 with October soybean meal down $8.80 per ton closing at $455.90. December wheat gained 7 cents closing at $9.1075. October live cattle declined $1.02 closing at $144.85. November crude oil gained $0.55 closing at $83.49 per barrel. The DOW declined 107 points ending at 30,077 while the NASDAQ declined 153 points closing at 11,067.
