Protein on the prowl

Posted 2 April, 2026

Credit: Jun Seita

As consumers in the United States add more protein to their diet, the world’s largest cheese producer is investing at a pace not seen in decades, while exports also surge. Indeed, American cheese makers are racing to market their products as an excellent source of protein. The trend is giving the dairy sector a giant boost, with investment surging to levels not seen in a quarter century and new plants opening across the country (1).

“Protein is king,” said Sara Dorland, dairy economist and managing partner at Seattle, Washington-based Ceres Dairy Risk Management. “Over the last two to three years demand has been explosive and probably well beyond anybody’s expectations.”

The United States is the world’s largest producer of cheese; last December, it produced 1.28 billion pounds (580,598 tonnes) of cheese according to the Dairy Products Production Report published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) (2), roughly the same as the monthly amount produced by Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Austria combined, which is 576,000 tonnes, as data from the European Commission shows (3).

By 2033, the industry’s annual receipts from domestic and export sales are projected to reach US$53.66 billion (€46.2bn), up from US$39.51 billion (€34bn) in 2024, according to Renub, a US and India-based global markets research and advisory firm(4).

“Since 2025, the US has seen record investments,” said Leonard Polzin, dairy markets and policy outreach specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Extension division. Between 2025 and 2028 alone, an estimated US$11 billion is currently being invested in US dairy processing infrastructure (5). This is compared with the typical pace of roughly $1-2 billion per year over the last 25 years, he added, citing data from the US Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Manufactures (ASM) (6).

Most of this expanding capacity will process conventional milk. Even though US organic milk production has been on the rise for the past decade, it still accounted for only 2.3 per cent of total US milk production in 2021, said a Rabobank report (7).

Meanwhile, plant-based cheese alternatives are actually declining at present, stressed Corey Geiger, lead dairy production and processing economist at agricultural lender CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange research division, citing US industry reports. “Plant-based milk is out of tune. For the 52 weeks ending 7 September, plant-based milk generated dollar sales of US$2.4 billion and a year-on-year decline of 3.3 per cent,” Geiger noted(8).

Regardless, some of the largest new plants coming online can process up to 10 million pounds of milk per day, for cheese and other products, including whey, whose significant protein density is boosting sales. “Processing the whey on site with dryers is a huge trend,” said Geiger. He noted that two major processing plants were opened in 2025 – a Leprino Foods factory, in Texas in January and a Hilmar Cheese plant, in Kansas in March.

He expects the protein boom to continue, with at least 12% of Americans on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs seeking more protein, according to a January 2026 study he co-authored, with Abbi Prins and Billy Roberts(9). “The US is definitely a cheese and whey story these days,” he told DII.

Meanwhile, US-based brands such as The Good Culture and Daisy Brand are helping fuel what experts are calling the “renaissance of cottage cheese”. Cottage cheese sales have risen for three consecutive years in US retail, most recently jumping 20 per cent in June 2025 year-on-year according to data from Chicago, Illinois-based market research firm Circana (10). Once associated more with grandparents than Gen Z, the dairy variety has found new momentum, fuelled by baking trends promoted on TikTok, helping organic dairy brands such as Austin, Texas-based Good Culture emerge as focuses of the revival.

“We’re just starting to catch up to where the consumers are,” said Ceres Dairy Risk Management’s Dorland, noting that cottage cheese products have steadily improved in packaging quality and freshness and increasingly aligned with younger people’s focus on functional nutrition. A lifelong cottage cheese eater herself, she said she now sometimes finds supermarket shelves empty.

Pizza lags

One US sector that has not benefited from this increase in demands for cheese is the restaurant industry – particularly pizza, one of the largest American users of cheese. The Wall Street Journal recently declared, “America is falling out of love with pizza,” suggesting the country may have reached “peak pizza” (11). Financial pressure is further reshaping dining habits. “More Americans have turned to eating at home and searching for value when dining out,” said Cara Murphy, senior manager of dairy market intelligence at Chicago-based market analysis firm HighGround Dairy.

Meanwhile, US cheese exports are at records highs. Before 2025, they had never surpassed 50,000 tonnes in a single month; according to the US Dairy Export Council, but November 2025 marked the seventh consecutive month above that threshold.

“America is focused on taking our cheeses to markets around the world,” noted Grace Atherton, spokesperson for the Wisconsin Cheese Maker Association, adding that exports help diversify dairy product offerings while strengthening rural economies countrywide. That said, some cheese makers are ignoring foreign markets, with US cheese currently priced at a discount compared to global competitors such as Europe and New Zealand. As Polzin put it, “We’re clearing product through exports, but we’re not getting additional premium or value for it.”

Exports still account for only a small share of US cheese sales — about 91% of production remains domestic, according to Geiger — but overseas, sales are increasingly viewed as the engine of future growth, with US-made cheddar and mozzarella selling well, according to the US Dairy Export Council. In 2025, US dairy exporters benefited from booming cheese demand in South Korea, exporting 71,177 tonnes from January-November — up 38% year-on-year (12). Mexico remained the leading destination for exported American cheese, with a record monthly volume of 19,656 metric tonnes sold in December 2025 alone, said the US Dairy Export Council) (13).

The American cheese market is also becoming more diverse, as US population demographics shift, both consumption and production of international-style cheeses are on the rise, particularly Hispanic-style varieties. “We’re seeing consumers become more intentional about both flavour and quality,” said Portia Young, spokeswoman with Sargento Foods, a major private US cheese company. Based in Wisconsin, Sargento has around 2,500 employees and markets sliced, shredded, and snack cheeses – a category that is itself growing in popularity as cheese is being redesigned as a snack with size-controlled packs to fit seamlessly into busy routines.

In January 2026, the brand introduced a Hot & Spicy Sliced Cheese line, featuring Mango Habanero Jack, Smoky Hot Colby-Jack, and Carolina Reaper Jack cheeses. These respond to growing demand for “bolder taste profiles” and “heat and exploration,” says Young. At the same time, she added, consumers still want “products that are approachable, versatile and rooted in real ingredients.”

Shifting sands

The shifting trade policies of the Trump administration are creating some challenges for US cheesemakers, however. Tariffs have driven up fertilizer costs, while foreign national farmworkers, concerned about immigration enforcement, have stayed home – as farmers, including dairy producers, warned in a letter to Congress in February (14).

Imports have also been affected. According to the US Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), cheese imports in November totalled 36.9 million pounds, down 21% from November 2024. The value of those imports fell 27% to US$143.7 million, with tariffed imports from Spain down 30% and the Netherlands down 17%. But Mike McCully, president of Indiana-based McCully Consulting, argued demand for imported cheeses had not been impacted significantly. “In some cases, sellers or importers take a margin hit to keep consumer prices from rising significantly,” he said.

“There’s some concern about uncertain markets in the international marketplace that farmers are telling us is a concern of theirs,” Wisconsin’s state secretary of agriculture, trade, and consumer protection, Randy Romanski, told DII, stressing the impact of trade disruptions because of US tariffs. He said that his agency wants to help open markets and ensure that “the quality, reliability and availability of Wisconsin products just shine in the marketplace.”

Wisconsin, which is home to about 5,100 dairy farms, leads the nation in cheese production, accounting for 25% of US cheese, including 600 varieties of speciality cheese, as USDA data shows (15). Romanski’s department of agriculture, trade and consumer protection (DATCP) supports farmers through several university research centres, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Dairy Research and the Wisconsin-based Dairy Innovation Hub, which focus on issues ranging from land and water stewardship to animal welfare and growing farm businesses.

Atherton, of the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, told DII that US cheese makers are ready to capitalise on the US market trend favouring international flavours, with production of European-style speciality cheeses rising. The country’s rich immigrant heritage has enabled cheesemakers to produce high-quality cheeses such as brie, goat cheese, aged cheddar and Swiss-style cheese. “Many European-style cheeses have been made for generations in the United States and around the world,” she said, adding that US Parmesan production reached 447 million pounds (203,000 tonnes) in 2024, surpassing the output of Parmigiano Reggiano in Italy by 37,000 tonnes, comparing with data released by the Parmiggiano Reggiano Consortium (16).

NOTES

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Cheese leads global growth, says Rabobank

The trends reshaping the Nordic nations

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