The return of cheese mountain
Back in the day, my friend’s grandmother, being of a certain age in the US, would get in her powder blue Mercedes convertible and go to a centralised depot, where she would pick up a large oblong block of American cheese. Catherine’s grandmother was part of the recipient package for these sturdy blocks of glutinous cheese, courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture. It was a way to try and reduce the cheese mountain of the 1980s. She was an immigrant, and of such stock that even if she didn’t need the cheese financially, she was going to have the cheese. Never turn down free cheese, was her motto.
Recently, the USDA, has after some lobbying from the dairy industry in the US, agreed to purchase $20 million of surplus cheese, amounting to some 11 million pounds. This cheese will be distributed to food banks, soup kitchens and the school lunch programme. It falls fairly short of what the industry requested, as the country now sits on a surplus of 759 million pounds, which is a 30-year high.
It is amazing how dairy moves in cycles, and the much-derided mountains are back, due to international prices, EU quotas lifting, the Russian embargo and the Chinese downturn. It also shows that to ignore global events is at one’s peril in this day and age, particularly in commodity markets. It doesn’t matter where you sit on the globe, this will affect you as a commodity participant.
Of course, prices are now increasing, but as we know it takes some time to filter through to the end user. So there will be more cheese for a while. I should inform my elderly mother that the cheese mountain is back in the US. She would be interested in such a gift, I am sure – no matter what the type. My mother will also never turn down free cheese.
