Can the U.S. Keep Its Dairy Export Advantage?
We’re excited to have Will Loux, senior vice president of global economic affairs for the U.S. Dairy Export Council, join us to share his presentation of the future of U.S. dairy exports.
For years, the U.S. dairy export portfolio has leaned heavily on nonfat dry milk, skim milk powder, lactose and lower-protein whey products.
But our exports are changing.
In the latest episode of The Milk Check, host Ted Jacoby sits down with Will Loux to break down the changing U.S. export picture.
In this episode, we cover:
Why U.S. dairy exports are moving toward cheese, fats and higher-value proteins
How domestic protein demand is pulling skim solids away from dryers
Why more cheese may be produced partly to create additional whey protein
How exports are absorbing a larger share of new U.S. cheese production
Where Latin America offers room for additional cheese growth
What it will take for U.S. butter exports to become more consistent and profitable
The U.S. has the milk. It has new processing capacity. And it is capturing a growing share of international cheese demand.
But growth creates new challenges. Are you ready to meet them?
Listen to The Milk Check episode 104: Can the U.S. Keep Its Dairy Export Advantage?
Also available on: Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
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Transcript:
Ted Jacoby III: [00:00:00] Coming up on the Milk Check.
Will Loux: What I’ve heard from folks in Europe and elsewhere is how do they manage the U.S. tsunami of exports that’s coming? And I think that, at the Export Council, it makes me excited, but it does mean we need to keep our strategies current.
Ted Jacoby III: Welcome to the Milk Check from T.C. Jacoby & Co., your complete guide to dairy markets, from the milking parlor to the supermarket shelf. I’m Ted Jacoby. Let’s dive in.
Ted Jacoby III: Today, we are very excited to have Will Loux, Senior Vice President of Global Economic Affairs for the U.S. Dairy Export Council joining us.
A few weeks ago I saw a presentation that Will gave that talked about where the U.S. dairy industry is going, especially from an international perspective. It was an absolutely fantastic presentation, and I couldn’t help but think that just this presentation alone would be an absolutely fantastic topic for our podcast.
I have a bunch of our traders joining us, many of our usual suspects, including:
Ted Jacoby III: Diego Carvallo, Joe Maixner, Miguel Aragon, Mike Brown, all from our trading team.
Guys, thanks for joining us.
Will, thank you so much for joining us. It’s great to see you again.
Will Loux: Good to see you, Ted.
Thanks for having me on.
Ted Jacoby III: Excited to have all of our listeners listen to this. Will, the floor is yours.
Will Loux: Perfect. Well, thank you for having me, Ted, and glad to have so many people on here and another audience for this presentation. I’ve got some slides. For those of you like me who will listen to this podcast usually while driving, feel free to go check it out on YouTube. I am also gonna do my best to reference what is in those slides as best I can remember to do so.
But what is the future of U.S. dairy exports? What we’ve seen, really over the last twenty-five years, has been this tremendous, consistent growth, in aggregate U.S. dairy exports.
We just got May data, and what we saw was on an annualized basis over the last twelve months, the U.S. actually set a new record again. So our exports have never been higher than they are today. But that said, our exports look fundamentally different than what they did 20 years ago. Before, when we were getting started with exports, 75, 80% of our exports were really driven by nonfat dry milk, and low-protein whey products, and lactose. That’s been the vast majority of our portfolio for much of this time, and we’ve had a few different eras where we’ve seen U.S. cheese exports picked up, especially around 2014 when the world was short of milk and we saw U.S. cheese and butter go overseas.
But then we saw that stagnate for a few years. Now, what we’ve seen since COVID has been this tremendous growth of these more value-add products, these specialty products. I believe the U.S. is moving towards a portfolio in the export market that looks a lot like cheese, fats, and proteins.
And that’s gonna be the core of our exports, I think, going forward because the U.S. dairy industry is really
kind of,
I consider it an evolution rather than, like,
a true revolution. But this is one of those facets that I think is really interesting to see is the U.S. has consistently been growing its exports, unlike a [00:03:00] lot of other supply origins.
But this is one that I think as we go forward I’m really excited about. But it’s gonna change how we need to think about exports over the next few years.
Ted Jacoby III: Will, it sounds like what you’re saying is not only are we seeing the total volume of exports go up, but the dollar per pound value is even going up faster because we’re switching away from that low-cost carb portfolio to a much higher-value protein, fat, et cetera portfolio.
Fair to say?
Will Loux: I think that’s exactly right. I think there are implications for that, too.
That if the U.S. is moving out of perhaps exporting as much skim milk powder or sweet whey because we’re instead making UF milk or cottage cheese or yogurt or high-protein whey,
well,
there’s still demand overseas for that sweet whey and for that skim milk powder.
But now, it’s actually getting supplied by a few other countries, too. So, we do have to keep all of these things in mind. But to me, I think we’re moving up the value chain as the U.S., and what I’ve heard from folks in Europe and elsewhere is how do they manage the U.S. tsunami of exports that’s coming? And I think that, at the Export Council, it makes me excited, but it does mean we need to keep our strategies current with where we’re gonna go in the future. One of the things that I’ve noticed here over the last really few months but even going back to last year has been a real shift in how the U.S. dairy market is balancing itself. I would argue that for the last really 20 years, to be frank, but at least for the last 15 years, the U.S. dairy market has largely been balanced to domestic fat demand. Yes, we did see, certainly, exports of cheese grow over this time, so I don’t want to discount that as a butterfat-heavy product, but for the most part, what we’ve seen has been the U.S. has consistently balanced with where domestic demand for butterfat has grown, and then we’ve exported the skim solids largely in the form of nonfat dry milk and sweet whey overseas.
What we’ve seen here over the last several years has been the U.S. switching from a traditionally balancing to domestic milkfat demand, where we’ve seen butter consumption grow, whole milk consumption grow.
U.S. milk production, U.S. dairy production grew with that. And then, we exported the additional skim solids in the form of nonfat dry milk, sweet whey, high protein whey, lactose. Those products were the ones that we were really exporting. Now, what I think is happening is the U.S. is no longer really balancing to fat anymore.
We’re in this precarious balance right now. We’re not quite balanced to protein yet, and we’re not quite balanced to the beef market yet because we still have high prices for protein. We don’t have enough of it to go around. We don’t have enough beef for the beef market to go around, but we also have more milk fat than the domestic market can consume.
And so we’ve seen these exports really rise. So, I think what we’re seeing right now is the U.S. being pulled in different directions, and the U.S. exports as we go forward here over the next few years is in some ways at a crossroad as to which of these routes do we go. Do we swing back to balancing to milk fat, which would mean we’re probably short of protein, or do we start balancing more to protein, which means we’re gonna need to find homes for a heck of a lot more cheese and butter in the next few years.
[00:06:00] Because to me, at least, if you look at the beef market,
from a dairy farmer’s perspective, you are still seeing that incentive to add additional cows just based on the returns on the beef side of things. And because of that incentive to hold the dairy cows longer to get the additional black calf, also with that breeding the best of the best in the young stock, we are just seeing the largest milking herd since the 1990s and the lowest replacement herd since the 1970s.
And everything we’re seeing on the beef cattle side of things would suggest this isn’t slowing down anytime soon. But from the U.S. perspective, I think what this means is we’re gonna continue to see more milking cows around, and those cows are getting more productive than ever before.
And even as we’re seeing this surge in milk production, I think on a component basis, last year in in 2025 we were up 3.8%. This year we’re up not quite at 3%, but still pretty darn close. Even as we see this growth of milk, these additional black calves coming on the market, we actually still don’t see enough protein hitting the dairy markets right now.
And so, what we’re seeing is even as we see this huge surge in cottage cheese production and yogurt production, my personal opinion is yogurt doesn’t get enough credit for this protein rally. It’s
like 10X
the volume of cottage cheese, but what we’re seeing right now is this pull of protein. I think this pull of protein is predominantly domestic. We’re seeing UF beverages, we’re seeing yogurts, we’re seeing cottage cheese, we’re seeing everything that whey protein can go into from cereals to snacks to beverages.
All of that protein pull is basically sucking protein and skim solids that had been going to the export market back into the U.S. By virtue of that, we’re also seeing U.S. cheese production need to increase, not so much for the cheese demand that we’re seeing here in the United States, but rather for the whey demand that we’re seeing here as well.
The cheese has really become that co-product of the whey stream. I think even conversations that I’ve had with U.S. manufacturers of, “How can I get more whey protein without building a new cheese plant” is part of the consideration. One of the things that we’ve looked at over this time has really been where is this protein in the United States going?
Because we’ve seen U.S. milk production rise, U.S. milk protein production rise in the sense of protein out of the cow, but we still have less nonfat dry milk and skim milk powder than we had a year ago. What I’ve noticed over this time has been certainly the cheese vat continues to get first dibs on most of that protein.
Even in the May data that we got out of USDA, you saw cheese production was up, even when nonfat dry milk was sitting at sky-high levels north of $2.00. What we’re really seeing right now is we’re pulling milk out of the dryers and either putting it into the cheese vat or putting it into these other high-protein products and the like. What that is doing is that’s shifting our export mix. So far this year, our exports of skim milk powder, amazingly, are flat somehow. But if [00:09:00] you look at our May exports of nonfat dry milk and skim milk powder, they were down 20%, and I think that’s reflective of that, and we were down last year.
What we’re seeing has been the U.S. is moving out of some of these carb-heavy, as you talked about, Ted, to these more
higher value
uses for these products. And even nonfat dry milk production picked up in May, but it’s not that we pulled milk out of the yogurts or out of the cottage cheese or out of the natural cheese itself, it’s that we stopped making skim milk powder and instead made nonfat dry milk.
This is really where we’re seeing this pull of protein, either in the form of beef necessitating more cows or necessitating more capacity to make whey proteins, milk proteins, UF products, or just high-protein dairy products. All of that pulled together is sending a, “Let’s go make more milk.” Contrasting that, you have cheese and fats, which at this point right now, and historically this isn’t too unusual, but it is something different than we’ve really seen over the last few years, has been this export push of cheese and dairy fats in the form of predominantly butter, AMF, and to a lesser extent whole milk powder. What we’re seeing here has really been this shift where right now I think we’re growing our milk production as fast as the international market can absorb our cheese and fats. Because if you look here, since COVID, what we’ve seen is about 36%, over a third of the new cheese that’s been manufactured in the United States, has gone to export. If you think about that historically, about 5% of the new cheese in the previous decade went to exports. And now we’re at 35%. And if you look at the last two years, it’s north of 65% has gone to exports. As we’re building these new cheese plants, in part for the whey, there is that eye towards, “Okay, where are we going with this cheese?” And it’s gotta be overseas. Within that, too, the United States is actually the one capturing what is a growing global market. It’s not just that the U.S. is flooding the market with less expensive cheese, it’s that global cheese demand is growing, and the U.S. is the one capturing that. Because if you look, since COVID, the U.S. has captured about 60% of that new cheese demand that’s happening overseas, and that’s really been coming from the United States. Europe’s grown their cheese exports too, so has New Zealand. Australia’s basically flat, but the rest of the world evens up.
The difference here is that the United States is really the one capturing this demand growth because we have the milk, we have the cheese, and that’s really where I think the U.S. has managed to expand its footprint, be a more consistent exporter, and really break into new markets that it hasn’t before.
But we’ve been in cheese for a while. Granted, it’s at a different scale today than what it has been. We were up 20% last year in cheese exports. This year we’re up about 25% so far this year.
We continue to surge in our cheese exports. The difference that is new this time around is, fundamentally, that we’re seeing this expansion come not [00:12:00] just in cheese as our primary vehicle to export the fat and casein, but also in fat-heavy products, predominantly butter, but also AMF and whole milk powder, too. That you’re seeing the United States now, for every,
load of high-protein beverages, you’re gonna have a load of cream that you’re gonna need to deal with, or multiple loads of cream that you’re gonna have to deal with, and that’s now going overseas. Domestic demand for butter is still going strong.
Domestic demand for whole milk continues to grow. The difference is we’ve just grown production faster than that domestic demand. And so, you pull this all together, and I really think we’re seeing an evolution in our portfolio for exports. Cheese by value is now our biggest export product, and you’ve seen fats and proteins continue to grow within that portfolio, as well, from a value perspective. While we’ve seen nonfat dry milk, low protein whey, lactose, those have really been flat to declining over this timeframe. And so, if you look at that incremental growth that we’ve seen in our U.S. dairy exports since COVID, again, what we’ve seen is our two biggest stars during this period have been cheese and fats, and I think protein in the long run is still really optimistic to me.
But you pull this all together, the U.S. is still gonna be a major player in skim milk powder, sweet whey, whey permeate, lactose. But if you look at where our exports are gonna grow in the future, those are really some of the key products.
What do you all think about this as kind of a argument here for where our U.S. dairy exports are going?
Joe Maixner: That’s been exactly what we’ve been discussing for the past six plus months, that our supply is going to continue to outpace the domestic demand.
So 100% agree with everything you said in this, Will.
I think that butter will continue to become a major player in the export market.
Miguel Aragón: In my case, being out there in the trenches, I see this day in, day out. The penetration of U.S. cheese and butter, especially right now.
We know the soaring ingredients, but cheese and butter especially, every day you could see it more and more in the marketplace. Something really interesting that you said at the beginning: If we’re gonna produce more cheese, we’re gonna have to find a place for it. We know the numbers, we see the numbers.
It’s an amazing story. But right now, as we speak, that is replicating in Central America.
You guys see it at the U.S. DEC. And I just came back from Colombia. The opportunity is there for us, as long as we keep doing what we’re doing now and looking at the market, adapting to the market, adapting to what the market is asking us for, and also replacing some of the product that is coming from Europe and New Zealand.
But I agree with what you’re saying here 100%.
Ted Jacoby III: Will, I’m gonna turn the question around on you a little bit. Is the global demand for butterfat there for us to continue to increase how much butter we’re exporting? And is the global demand for cheese there? Will that global demand keep increasing for those two products?
Will Loux: From my perspective, it’s yes. What I find interesting over the last couple years has been that [00:15:00] cheese demand held up exceptionally well even during high inflation periods. Where we saw other dairy products actually feel a lot of the pressure internationally, cheese demand kept growing pretty much right on track. What we’ve seen here on the cheese side over the last couple of years internationally has been this acceleration in cheese demand, and I think some of that has to do with, as Miguel was saying, tremendous growth from our partners in Latin America. That’s been a key engine for U.S. dairy exports here over the last couple of years and, frankly, since the Export Council was founded about 30 years ago.
But when we look at the opportunities abroad,
I think that we still have a lot of untapped potential on the cheese side. I remain pretty optimistic about that. The other thing I’ll say, too, here is: I don’t think European milk production’s gonna keep growing at 3% a year. I don’t think you’re seeing the same investment in new cheese capacity.
I think we’re seeing investment in Europe and New Zealand in new protein capacity, and that’s maybe another conversation. But I think the U.S., one, has the opportunity to capture what is a growing global market on the cheese side, and also capture market share on the cheese side. The butter standpoint has been interesting.
Butter has typically been, internationally, one of the more price-elastic products. It’s one that we’ve seen when butter prices really skyrocketed, some of that may be allocation, but when butter prices were high, we did see international demand struggle. Conversely, when butter prices were low, like they are today in many ways, we’ve seen butter demand grow.
And butter demand internationally is growing, not just out of the U.S., but globally. I think the question I have here with butter is less about can the U.S. compete in this market, but more, what is our price point relative to Europe and New Zealand. Because I think if you look at our butter exports, for much of last year we were probably a buck a pound below Europe.
A lot of that butter was going into Europe, where coincidentally the tariff into Europe is about a buck a pound. I think my question is more crucially than can the U.S. capture growing demand for butter, it’s where do we grow our butter exports. And I, personally, think the U.S. should never be exporting really butter to Europe unless we get additional market access.
I think the U.S. should be exporting butter to its higher value markets and partners, places like Mexico, like Central America, North Asia and Korea, Australia, the Middle East, assuming we can keep the strait open for a little while. But
I still remain pretty optimistic that the U.S. can keep growing in those products.
Some of it will be market share, and some of it will be new demand, particularly on the cheese side.
Ted Jacoby III: Will, looking at this graph where it’s talking about, U.S. dairy exports by destination,
there’s a big increase into Latin America since 2021.
Will Loux: Yep.
Ted Jacoby III: Is that fair to say most of that is cheese?
Will Loux: It’s fair to say most of it is cheese. We have seen increases also in nonfat dry milk and skim milk powder exports to Latin America over this timeframe, too, but the big driver, I think especially post-COVID in Latin America, was, [00:18:00] one, that region was the first major region, I should say, where tourism increased to levels higher than what it was before COVID, and we continue to see pretty good economic performance in the region.
The other thing I don’t wanna discount here, too, has also been the full implementation of CAFTA-DR, our trade agreement with many of the Central American countries came into full effect, and you’ve seen this real surge in demand from the region and collaboration with our local partners there, that we’ve really seen this growth in Central American demand and Caribbean demand.
Most of that is cheese. More recently, there are also
butter and AMF and so going there too, but cheese has been the engine on the Latin American side most recently.
Mike Brown: Will, I’ve got a question.
Anything in particular we in the dairy industry, and of course you at U.S. DEC, are watching as far as improving opportunities, but also possible disadvantages we may gain through trade.
Will Loux: Yeah. Great question, Mike. I have a mix of optimism, and then probably a couple notes of caution on this.
So from my optimistic take, a lot of these new agreements on reciprocal trade that we’ve signed with key partners around the world, some of these are incredibly exciting because these are markets we’ve wanted to have agreements with for a long time. In particular, Indonesia makes me very excited.
I think if we are able to see that actually be implemented here soon, I would be even more excited. I think there’s still a question on when that gets fully implemented. Taiwan is another one. We are getting access into markets that we never had access to before. We’ll see when those are fully implemented but again, I am still pretty optimistic on where those have opportunities for the U.S. to build upon and get on an equal footing with our competitors in Oceania and in Europe. However, our competitors are not staying static.
We see a new agreement here between the European Union and Mexico. We have an agreement between the European Union and Mercosur that gets them additional access, particularly in proteins. I think the U.S. cannot take its customers for granted. Especially as we look at places like Mexico, that’s one where competition is not going to go away.
And when we’ve seen nonfat dry milk sit 75 cents plus above Europe, you’re gonna see customers start calling Europe and New Zealand and looking for alternative sources. Or when we have high-protein whey products that are in such demand domestically, are we making sure we’re contacting our customers abroad?
Because what we’re seeing now is Europe is heavily investing in additional whey protein capacity. Even as the U.S. is the largest exporter of high-protein whey in the world, I think there are other origins that are coming for that. And so, when I look optimistically, it’s like, “Great, we get more market access.” But to some of the key questions that I have around
like
is the U.S. ready for the future of dairy exports, one of them is gonna be: How do we actually meet this international demand on the protein side, and are we gonna have the market access that we need
to be able [00:21:00] to capture sales?
As I look at the world market today, I have a ton of optimism for where the U.S. can really be the supplier of choice, but it’s not gonna be a straight line from here to there, even on the fats or even on the cheese.
I think the last couple years, milk production’s been up so much, it’s allowed us to capture a lot of demand, but even those I think will bounce around.
Mike, I don’t know if that answered your question, but that was where my head’s at these days.
Ted Jacoby III: Everybody, we will be right back after these messages.
Diego Carvallo: I’m Diego Carballo with T.C. Jacoby & Co.. T.C. Jacoby & Co. specializes in international dairy markets. For new customers that haven’t done business with Jacoby, I would tell them that we can provide them with many of the powders, dairy products that they consume, not only with the physical product, but we can also help them mitigate their risk.
We know dairy. We know the main players. We know the main providers for the whole value chain. We are one of the strongest players in the U.S. market because we have contact all the way from the farmer moving the liquid milk all the way to the end users that buy the end products. I am Diego Carballo with T.C. Jacoby & Co., and we bring dairy to the world.
Will Loux: Ted, maybe what do you think if we go through a couple of these questions and have a little debate?
Ted Jacoby III: All right. We’ll ask our team.
Number one, does the U.S. have the necessary market access and global reach to capture sales opportunities in a multipolar world?
Will Loux: And maybe I’ll clarify what I mean by multi-polar world.
Ted Jacoby III: Great idea.
Will Loux: Cause what I mean by that is if you look at global dairy trade leading up to COVID especially, from 2010 to 2020, China was the engine of that global dairy import demand growth. They accounted for 40% of that growth. These days, I’m not particularly optimistic China’s gonna be the engine. I think China will be an important import market, for sure. And I think they’re still gonna need fats, they’re still gonna need proteins, but they’re growing their own domestic supply, particularly of commodities. So, what I think the future looks like from a demand perspective is collective growth. Latin America, Southeast Asia, Middle East, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa even, I think there will be a lot of countries growing that collectively equal what China was doing before. But we’re gonna have to play in a lot of markets.
So, the question to you guys then is: Do we have the reach and access to be able to compete in a lot of different places, or what does that look like for the U.S.?
Because China is not gonna be the engine of global dairy demand here over the next decade, we’re gonna have to compete in a lot of different markets. In the previous decade leading up to COVID, you saw a lot of the New Zealand milk production, an increasing percentage was going to China, which opened up opportunities for us in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and others.
As we look at this next era of dairy exports, do we have the market access? Do we have the global reach and infrastructure to be able to capture sales in a lot of different markets [00:24:00] around the world?
Diego Carvallo: That’s a good question. If we start with the premise that the U.S. is not gonna desperately need to export nonfat, I would say that it’s not gonna be that difficult to find new markets. The U.S. is not gonna have to fight to move additional volumes like they need to do for products like butter. Where do we take the skim milk powder that we’re currently making if China is not a huge buyer anymore? There’s plenty of demand still to be covered in other regions of Southeast Asia in other regions in Latin America, where we should have a good footprint and where we should have some advantages when it comes to freight.
I would say the main markets where we have to gain market share are gonna be definitely Central America, the Caribbean and Latin America because of all of the advantages when it comes to freight and the relationship and other factors. The market where we’re gonna fight with the rest of the origins is gonna be Southeast Asia, we may need to go there and fight with price, with aggressive pricing, and we may need to compete even with China, ’cause we’re hearing that even China has been exporting product to that region in the past year. There’s gonna be some markets where we are positioned to gain market share and others where we’re gonna have to compete in price.
Ted Jacoby III: Miguel, what do you think? With cheese and butter, do we have the necessary market access and global reach?
Miguel Aragón: We do have the necessary market access. Our products are welcome where we are taking them. Our issue is more like, the cheeses that we produce at scale, cheddar and color cheddar, are not necessarily the cheeses that our markets are asking for. We need Gouda, we need Monterey Jack, we need Sadero, we need Manchego. We need the help of our partners, our plant partners, to adapt and to see the opportunity of the cheeses that those markets ask for. And I’m in particular about Latin America. But then again, that’s a big market.
U.S. cheeses are well-received. We do have places to go with it. We just have to get better at exporting. U.S. DEC does a really good job at helping us get into those markets, vet the customers and teach about the products. We are doing the right things.
We just need to do it a little bit better. We do have places to go with that extra cheese.
Ted Jacoby III: Miguel, do you think there’s a lot of underserved regions in Central and South America? In other words, are there a lot of customers who the only reason they’re not buying and importing more U.S. cheese is because they don’t know who to buy it from, they don’t have the contacts?
Miguel Aragón: I do. In the last trips that I made, especially to the northern part of South America, colombia, Peru, Ecuador, there is demand. It just reminds me of Mexico 15, 20 years ago. They don’t know who to buy it from. They don’t know that we make it.
They don’t know that we have the variety that we have. It’s an education. We have to work, harder at marketing our products down there. But there is a place. There is definitely a place. There is a market.
Ted Jacoby III: Thanks, Miguel. All right, Joe, I got a question for you.
Can the U.S. export butterfat products consistently and in a [00:27:00] profitable manner?
Joe Maixner: I think we’ve started showing that we can export consistently.
Numbers have been pretty consistent and have been growing throughout the year. A profitable portion probably remains to be seen. We’ll always have to be aggressive as we’re entering into new markets ‘ cause we’re gonna have to find a way to penetrate into markets that have been historically dominated by Europe or Oceania with a product that does not look like Europe or Oceania’s product.
The easiest way to do that, obviously, is to, for lack of a better term, buy our way into the market to people to try the product. But once our product is in there and they realize it’s a consistent quality butter,
I think that we certainly have the opportunity to be profitable long-term.
Realistically, exporting butterfat consistently makes everybody more profitable in the U.S. because it pushes fat offshore, which helps our butter price, ultimately, domestically.
Will Loux: When I look at exporting butterfat profitably, for us, especially at the Export Council, it’s been one of those things that the U.S. for the longest time hasn’t had butter basically to export. When we’ve gotten long, we’ve found places to clear it. I think what’s changed this time around has been that it seems like with the pull of protein, that we’re gonna have at least some butter available long-term. The question that I still have is where are the best places for us to invest? And even as an Export Council, where are the best places for us to invest our resources into trying to make sure that customers even know that the U.S. has butter available to export, while also trying to find ways of helping U.S. exporters navigate different tariffs than they’ve traditionally had to export, making sure the product specs meet it, and then also trying to get new market access in places that, for a while we’ve seen a lot of trade agreements that thankfully got the U.S. access in cheese and in milk powders, and sometimes butter was in there, sometimes it wasn’t.
And so how do we get additional access into that? I look at the U.S.-Japan phase one, that we got additional cheese access, I think we could use some additional butter access into Japan. I’m pretty optimistic on this one. I don’t know if we’re there yet, but I think it’s gonna be isolating which markets are going to be the most profitable for us.
I’m probably less optimistic that we’re gonna be consistent in exporting butter here in the next couple of years.
But long-term, I think it’s undeniable that the U.S. is gonna have to go in this direction eventually.
Ted Jacoby III: Why are you less optimistic in the short-term?
Will Loux: I’m a little optimistic in the short-term because we have been exporting effectively double the butter exports we have been. We’ve seen that gap between the U.S. and international markets close quite a bit. Inventories are pretty low. The milk fat test, until May, which surprised me a little bit, had been slowing down as farmers adjusted rations. If we get to the point where butter is $1.40, $1.50, I’m not sure it always makes sense for the farmers to pay for the incremental increase in feed inputs to boost the butterfat test to the [00:30:00] extent that would boost our exports.
We may find ourselves tighter in butter in the fourth quarter because we’ve exported our way back to balance.
And to me, it looks like where cheese was 15 years ago: That we are on the path towards being a consistent exporter, but we’re often still going to prioritize our domestic market. From the U.S. perspective, I think our butter looks like cheese did 15 years ago, where we’re often export competitive, but not always.
Joe Maixner: Will, basically, you have summed up exactly what I’ve been saying for a while, where the butter export opportunity will be cyclical because we will get super competitive, which will drive our domestic price up, which will take us out of the market, and then in turn, cause a surplus of domestic butter to show up in the market, which will then collapse the price and make us super competitive again in the export market.
We’re still early enough in the phase that we’re trying to figure out those cycles.
I do think it’s cyclical. Overall, though, I do think we will be a consistent exporter.
There’ll be a base, and it will ebb and flow, but I do think we will be a consistent exporter moving forward because as we’ve gained market share, we are getting loyal end-use customers in export markets that will consistently pay for our product.
Will Loux: I 100% agree with that. I think it’s gonna be, where do we keep our consistent customers, and where are the opportunistic sales that maybe ebb and flow?
That’s gonna be a multi-year process as that all shakes out as to where are our stickiest markets within all this?
Mike Brown: You want those consistent customers.
Jacoby, one of our jobs is helping people with those opportunities. So,
they’re both important, but you still need that core base demand and respect for the product. And so, I have a question for you on this, Will.
Let’s take butter. Butter’s a great example because the world is unsalted 82, we’re salted 80. I think Joe would attest: We’re seeing suppliers trying to be more flexible in making the product that meets that demand, yet on the other hand, if you’re gonna store a commodity, you gotta make the commodity that is the market product.
What are you seeing as far as our adaptability to be that flexible supplier in the world market? What else do we need to do that maybe we aren’t currently doing?
Will Loux: There certainly has been a lot of progress made. From my perspective, you have a few different things. One is, of course, the salted and the fat content in the U.S. is different. It’s rare that we’re gonna be exporting from our inventories of 80 salted unless it’s just purely a price play. But what I think about when I think long-term export opportunities is really targeting the key channels that the U.S. is likely to win in first. And some of that’s food manufacturing. I think that’s where the U.S. can be really good, especially making bulk butter for export. I think it’s the first channel.
But then it’s also making sure our
formats
meet the expectations of the customers. Because food manufacturing, I think, will only get us so far. The next phase where the U.S. can really excel in a couple markets is in the foodservice space and in the bakery space, in particular. We have next to no [00:33:00] capacity in the U.S. to make butter sheets, basically the stuff that you would use for croissants or bakery applications. Those are things we know we’ve heard from customers on how we can make products that are specifically geared towards that. In the long run, those are some of the issues. Some of it’s also from an Export Council perspective, educating customers on why U.S. butter is a different color, helping them understand how to utilize it.
And even if they choose to use 80%, how to adjust their formulations to that to help understand,
“Hey, this is a simple difference of 2% fat difference.” We can work in that space here, too. Long term, I think the U.S. needs to be sure, and this is something we’ve seen in all the other export products that we’ve seen over the years, is not solely trying to sell what we make here in the U.S. and say, “Hey, you should try this instead.”
But instead figuring out what our customers are asking for and really making that product. And a lot of that goes down to also the formats
and trying to move beyond just bulk butter for further processing into really targeted markets with those specific products.
Ted Jacoby III: Joe, do you think the butter industry will invest in those things to increase our
capabilities to deliver what the customer wants?
Joe Maixner: I think eventually they may have to if our fat components continue the direction that they’re going.
Some of the forward thinkers will be the first to adapt, and they’ll be the beneficiaries of investing in some further processing type manufacturing to be able to account for that. Cause at the end of the day, the profit’s in the value add. It’s not in selling bulk.
If there’s production capacity, and there’s space to do the addition, and somebody has the foresight to take the chance on it, I think that the payoff is there.
Because if you get into that food service type packaging or laminated butter sheets or you get into a product that nobody else is making, that makes you very sticky in that market. You own that market.
Will Loux: Even as we’re talking about butter here, we’ve got to think of other, fat-heavy products that could actually play really well in the international market. I tend to think whether it’s, like a UHT cream product, I know there’s always interest in like a frozen cream product.
That’s a hard thing for the U.S. to make in some ways. I think UHT creams, we continue to see grow even as we see UHT milk itself actually decline globally. But we’re seeing real interest in that food service sector of, “Hey, let’s get whipping creams that are really targeted towards some of these international markets.” As much as for the U.S. it’s geared around, “Okay, what’s the most storable form of fat?” I think that’s step one, to find a way to export it. But step two is really what are these value-add fat-containing products that we can actually be targeting and competing in as well. And then I think balancing to
like an AMF or a whole milk powder, but then using our butter and creams for the value add opportunities.
Ted Jacoby III: I agree.
Joe Maixner: Let’s not forget cream cheese, either. Cream cheese internationally has been phenomenal.
That has plenty of trajectory to keep going.
Miguel Aragón: I [00:36:00] must agree 100% with what Joe was saying on cream cheese. We are seeing phenomenal requests for cream cheese throughout Latin America, now in Asia.
As what you were saying about channels,
Will,
we are now working with retailers in Central America with butter. Right now, it’s food service packaging going into retailers, but I think
that’s a very interesting thing happening because once those brands of U.S. manufacturers start showing up in the retailers,
I think we’re gonna have a better pool of U.S. butter.
Ted Jacoby III: I agree, Miguel. Will, I think we should move on to the next couple of questions.
– I’m gonna read them both out because I think they’re very related.
The first question is, can the U.S. grow cheese exports fast enough to keep up with whey protein demand. And then the second question is, will the U.S. have the protein to supply both the rising domestic and international consumption? I’ll answer the Second question first, which is, my
dad, one of the things he drove into us as traders was, at the end of the day, everything’s a matter of price. Which means supply and demand will be regulated by what the price of protein is in the global market. I think it’s fair to say Europe has
a much greater ability to add whey protein processing than the U.S. does because a smaller percentage of the whey offtake from cheese plants in Europe is currently being processed into whey protein.
So, we will see some pushback there. But in the end of the day, that’s simply gonna self-regulate over what that global price is. My prediction is, can the U.S. grow cheese exports fast enough to keep up with that whey protein demand? I think we are reaching a point where the U.S. is consistently priced where the world market is priced for cheese, and I think that is going to change the way new cheese plants get built because we have had
pushback for
for 40 years.
It’s exactly what Miguel has been talking about, is you don’t make the cheese that we want.
Well,
if we’re consistently now priced properly into the international market, my challenge for the cheese industry is someone needs to build a plant that supplies the international market with what they want, because we’ve arrived at the point where we’re gonna be consistently competitive now, and that risk becomes worth it. Miguel, do you agree?
Miguel Aragón: Totally. I couldn’t have said it better.
The market is there; it’s waiting for us to take more of it, but we need the right product now.
Ted Jacoby III: And I think that whey protein demand may actually drive someone to do it.
What do you think?
Will Loux: I agree with everything you’re saying. I think these are two inextricably linked pieces. Right now the signals are such: “Make more whey protein capacity” is clear. There’s also an element of “make more MPC capacity” or “make more capacity with the skim stream targeting proteins” as well.
I think what’s holding back some of this capacity to date is probably much more the profitability on the cheese and on the fat side, and where those prices are at. From the dairy farmer perspective of if they’re investing is, the dairy farmer getting the price signals on the protein side? Because right now they’re getting the [00:39:00] price signals on the cheese side and on the fat side, and those are saying not as much to grow. These all need to be put into the spectrum of like, if we successfully grow our cheese exports and keep that international price relatively firm and grow demand abroad for cheese, and grow demand abroad for fats, it’s clear to me the protein demand seems pretty much insatiable here in the U.S.
I think there’s a ton of untapped demand internationally, especially as GLP-1s start launching internationally. Like, there is a lot of international demand that I don’t think the U.S. should lose sight of, particularly with regards to whey proteins and milk proteins and all these other products.
But it comes down to: can we grow our exports of cheese and butter, not just where we’re setting the global price for those products, but finding ways to make that stream profitable internationally, just as we’ve made the protein stream now incredibly profitable from a whey protein perspective.
Folks are gonna come, particularly in Europe, as you said, I think they’re manufacturing over a million metric tons right now of sweet whey in Europe. Some of that’s gonna go to high-protein whey products. We’re gonna have more competition in that space. We’ll see what the price ends up being. All of these things are inextricably linked. And when I think about the mandate here at the Export Council, it’s like, how do we grow those cheese, those fat, and those protein exports, to keep that profitably moving and continue that investment? Because demand’s there for protein, and we’re seeing good demand internationally for cheese.
We’re moving the fat overseas. But how do we do that in the most valuable way possible, I think is really what’s gonna be that next era of U.S. dairy exports.
Joe Maixner: Will, I’m gonna ask you a question, ‘ cause I’m gonna push back a little bit. You said that farmers aren’t seeing the signals because of cheese and fat.
You don’t think a $17 plus Class III and an $18 Class IV basically for the next year, plus your return on beef, plus your cheap inputs on feed is not enough to get the farmers to expand?
Will Loux: Oh, I think they will continue to expand. When the nonfat dry milk price shot up, I think that was a reflection that we were short on protein.
That we pulled so much out of the dryer, that was that reflection.
But I think as Mike even said on one of your previous podcasts, that it was really shown in the PPD rather than necessarily in the protein price.
I don’t mean necessarily they’re not getting the signal, it’s just some of it’s our pricing system is a convoluted signal.
Ted Jacoby III: Will, you’re speaking to the choir.
Mike Brown: I’m gonna have to quote you on that one.
Ted Jacoby III: I’m gonna take this opportunity to say, Will, thank you so much for joining us today.
This has been a fantastic discussion. I hope you come back soon and join us again, because we always love having you on our podcast.
Will Loux: Always fun being with you guys. Thanks for having me on.
Miguel Aragón: Bye, guys.
[00:42:00]
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