Weekly cheese prices

These prices come from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, a daily spot market for cheese, and the Agricultural Marketing Service's (AMS) weekly cheese price survey. The weekly prices set by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are used for cheese sales the following week.

The prices published by the AMS come from 99 companies selling 1 million pounds or more of dairy products; 17 companies report 40-pound blocks of cheddar. The AMS price is announced on Wednesday at 3 p.m. and is always half a week behind. For example, the AMS price announced on April 4 was for the week ending March 31.

The Chicago Mercantile has replaced the National Cheese Exchange, which was once a major market for pricing 80 to 90 percent of the wholesale cheese trade in the United States. In addition, the NCE has had a tremendous impact on farm-to-farm milk prices because it has a major influence on the base price of milk formula; the BFP is the base price for all prices under the federal government's milk marketing regulations.

Note: Cheese has been traded daily on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange since September 1, 1998. CME cash trading in cheese takes place from 10:45 a.m. to 10:50 a.m., with a closing call that may last a maximum of another 10 minutes. This website will continue to report annual activity while [Chicago Mercantile Cheese Exchange Daily Prices] will report on the last five trading days on the cheese market.

Since USDA began using the NASS survey and the AMS cheese price report to update the BFP, the NASS/AMS survey price for 40-pound block cheese has become an important benchmark.

Daily cheese

Weekly butter