Schreiber Foods Puts $267 Million Back Into Process Cheese: The American Cheese Pool It Draws On Is Flat

If this were my board paper, I would ask one thing before signing. Where does the cheese come from in 2028? Schreiber Foods has put $267 million into a new process cheese plant in Carthage, Missouri. The American cheese pool it draws on fell 3% in 2024 and is flat this year.

What Schreiber is building

The plant is new ground rather than a bolt-on. Schreiber announced it on 23 September. The $267 million site starts operations in 2028 and adds about 100 jobs. It goes up next to the firm's own distribution centre on Hazel Avenue. Schreiber has been in Carthage since 1950 and employs more than 1,300 people there. Jason Stephens, who runs the US business, said the firm still sees room in process cheese.

The project came back bigger

This site has a history. Schreiber announced a $211 million plant here in December 2024. That version carried 150 jobs and 168,000 square feet. The firm put the work on hold in April 2025. The plan is back 17 months later at $267 million, with a third fewer jobs. Carthage put the figure at $267.65 million when it approved the bonds.

That swap is the whole story in one line. Roughly $1.4 million of capital sat behind each new job in 2024. The 2026 plan carries about $2.7 million behind each one. Job counts are a poor guide to output, and the two designs may differ in scope. The firm told the city the new one carries more machines.

The pool it draws on

Process cheese starts as American type cheese. USDA had that pool at 5.58 billion pounds in 2024, down 3% on 2023. Total US cheese output rose that year, so the fall sits inside the American block alone. The 2026 prints say the same thing. American type ran at 3.4 billion pounds in the seven months to July, near flat.

The growth moved to another vat. Italian cheese output rose 4.2% in the seven months to July. Mozzarella alone reached 2.96 billion pounds, up 2.4%. Cheddar fell 0.1% over the period and dropped 1.7% in July. Total cheese grew 2.4% while the block used for slices went nowhere. Cream cheese, another Schreiber line, rose 9.5% in July.

Barrels above blocks again

The price signal points the same way. Barrel cheese is what slices and loaves are made from. Barrels closed at $1.4525 a pound in Chicago on 18 September. Blocks closed at $1.3500, so barrels held a 10 cent premium. Both grades gave up about five cents over that week. The tighter half of the US cheese market is the process cheese half.

Two plants land in 2028

Schreiber is not alone in this. Bongards' Creameries committed $135 million in August to its Minnesota process cheese plant. That project adds 180 million pounds a year from early 2028. Both plants arrive in the same year, into the one part of the cheese pool that has stopped growing. Bongards named four outlets for the volume: foodservice, retail, industrial ingredient and export.

What this means for the market

Market size is the wrong first question here. The US process cheese pool is flat, so new tonnes have to come off someone else's line. The likely donors are older plants and smaller slicers. Cost position decides that fight, and machines are how Schreiber has answered it. An entrant should check two things. First, whether the target buyer is retail or foodservice, because only retail carries label risk. Second, whether barrel supply near the site holds up once both plants run.

For anyone weighing process cheese capacity, the decision rests on whose tonnes the new lines take. The Global Cheese Database 2026 separates processed formats from natural cheese across 48 markets, in tonnes. It also splits ingredient use from what shoppers eat. A waitlist is open, with a free sample country chapter.