Cheese sells during Christmas and Super Bowl
The daily trading of cheese at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is a big factor in producer milk prices and this is the time of year where cheese sales are the highest. Christmas used to be the biggest cheese selling time of the year, according to analyst Jerry Dryer, editor of the Dairy and Food Market Analyst and chief market analyst for Rice Dairy in Chicago.
Christmas may still be number one, considering all channels, Dryer said, but in the retail side of the business, it’s the week preceding Super Bowl Sunday because there’s so much entertaining going on at home, etc.
There’s a huge push through other channels because of Christmas, Dryer said. Food service ticks up during the holiday entertaining, he said, and “one area we don’t have our arms around at all in terms of measuring the size of it, is the gift giving in cheese at Christmas time, the mail order side of the business and the boom in small retail specialty cheese shops etc. Those numbers don’t get reported in the Nielsen or Information Resources data that monitors super markets with sales above $2 million per week.
Christmas is still the big seller, according to Dryer, and those sales begin to kick in September as cheese is ordered and winds its way through the distribution process to get on to the retail shelf for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, New year’s Eve, and then Super Bowl.
Cheese sales this year appear to be very good, according to conversations Dryer has had with those in the business. There have been some significant promotions at retail, something he monitors, and they have involved advertising in the food sections of major metropolitan newspapers. There has also been a great deal of signage and promotion in stores, he said, with big discounts “Because cheese prices came off their highs of the year, early enough to facilitate some good discounts.”
Private label cheese sales have been very strong, according to Dryer, and branded sales appear to have been good as well.