Cheese Makes Comeback as U.S. Restaurants Reopen, Lifting Prices – Bloomberg

As restaurants reopen in the U.S., Americans are once again eating food laden with more butter and cheese than most home cooks would dare to use. The extra consumption is sending prices higher.

Cheese sold on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 500-pound barrels is up 18% so far this year. That’s the processed kind you’d top a burger with and find at most restaurants. Cheese sold in 40-pound blocks, the sort used in party platters and consumed in homes, has risen 9%.

“We are seeing a very healthy trajectory on volumes” of dairy products going to restaurants, said Beth Ford, Chief Executive Officer of Land O’Lakes Inc. “It’s accelerated even more rapidly than we expected.”

Read the full article by Breanna T Bradham and Kim Chipman with Bloomberg here.