September 1, 2008

US dairy shipments value in the first half of this year totalled over US$2.105 billion, hitting more than 75 percent increase over the same period last year.

The towering growth has been driven by higher world dairy product prices. In contrast, the value of US dairy product imports increased only 13 percent to US$1.447 billion, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

The group says that during the first half of 2007, the value of US dairy imports exceeded the value of exports, just as it had every year since 1993. This changed dramatically in the second half of last year, such that export value exceeded import value for the entire year. That trend has not only continued, but the dairy export value in the first half of 2008 was nearly 46 percent higher than the value of dairy imports.

Nonfat dry milk and other skim milk powders represent the largest volume of dairy exports, with over 516 million pounds and an export value of US$866.1 million. This category jumped by more than 176 percent on-year.

The only categories of dairy products that experienced declines in export value were ice creams and related frozen dairy products, down 8.1 percent, and various whey products.