Cheddar Jumps 16.5% While Mozzarella Falls 6%: The GDT Cheese Spread Swung $824 A Tonne In Two Weeks

If I were buying cheese this quarter, I would reprice one line today and leave the rest alone. The cheddar line. On 15 September the Global Dairy Trade auction lifted cheddar 16.5% to $4,075 a tonne. Mozzarella fell 6.0% to $3,992 at the same sale.

Two cheeses, one auction, opposite ways

The sale drew 155 bidders, and 126 of them won product. The overall price index slipped 1.1%. That was its first fall since the opening auction in July. Inside that small move, two cheeses went different ways. Cheddar was the only product on the platform to post a double-digit rise. Butter fell 5.7%, anhydrous milkfat 3.0% and whole milk powder 0.8%. Skim milk powder was flat at $3,689 a tonne. Cheddar and mozzarella are the two cheeses listed at these sales. Traders, bakers and food makers across Asia and the Middle East buy both in bulk. A move in either one carries straight into landed cost.

The spread swung 824 dollars a tonne in a fortnight

Two weeks earlier the picture was reversed. At the 1 September sale cheddar fell 6.6% to $3,503 a tonne. Mozzarella rose 0.3% to $4,244 and sat $741 a tonne above it. By 15 September cheddar sat $83 a tonne above mozzarella. The gap between the two moved $824 a tonne in one fortnight. Both cheeses start as the same milk and sell at the same event.

The move runs all the way to February 2027

A short-term squeeze shows up in one contract. This one showed up in five. The October cheddar contract rose 23.7% to $3,940 a tonne, and the February 2027 contract rose 15.7% to $4,155. November gained 20.3% and December 15.4%. Buyers were paying up for cheddar five months out. Mozzarella fell by about 6% across each of its three contracts.

America makes more cheese every year and less cheddar

The supply side explains more here than the demand side. US cheese output in July reached 1.26 billion pounds, up 2.1% on July 2025. Output across the first seven months reached 8.75 billion pounds, up 2.4%. Cheddar output over those same seven months fell 0.1%. July cheddar fell 1.7% to 328.6 million pounds. Mozzarella rose 2.9% in July and 2.4% across the seven months. Italian types took the growth. Their July output reached 551.1 million pounds, up 4.1%. American types fell 1.1% to 479.8 million pounds in the same month. US cheese imports rose 17% in July as well.

The vats changed product rather than closing

Wisconsin shows the shift most clearly. The state made 308.9 million pounds of cheese in July, up 2.4%. Its American-type output fell 8.0% in the same month. Italian types there rose 5.2%. Across the country parmesan rose 25.3% and gouda 30.4%, while cheddar and provolone fell. Foremost Farms leaves 40 pound block cheddar at Marshfield in December. Prairie Farms is closing two cheese plants at Shullsburg. The milk keeps arriving. It goes into a different cheese.

Whey is long while cheddar is short

The side stream tells the same story from the other end. US dry whey output rose 18.7% in July to 78.7 million pounds. Stocks of dry whey ended July 37.4% above a year earlier. Cheddar and mozzarella both yield sweet whey. So a country can grow its whey pool while its cheddar pool shrinks, which is what the July figures show. A cheddar maker earns less from the side stream just as the cheese itself gets dearer.

Four things follow for the rest of 2026. Reprice any uncovered cheddar tonnage before the next auction. Ask whether your supplier can move a vat between cheddar and Italian types, because most cannot. Treat mozzarella as the cheaper cover of the two this quarter. Read the USDA forecast beside the auction. Washington trimmed its 2026 cheese price to $1.5700 a pound on 11 September. Those two numbers now point different ways.

We will be watching whether the cheddar tonnage comes back. A price gap this wide usually pulls product toward it inside two quarters. The answer sits in how much cheddar each country can make. That split by cheese type, market by market, is what our Global Cheese Database 2026 is built to show. The waitlist includes a free sample country chapter.