This year, the U.S. According to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report on how much dairy each person eats, the dairy industry has finally moved on from the 1960s. In terms of popularity among Americans, dairy has gone back to where it was in 1959.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its annual report on per-person dairy consumption in the U.S. on September 30. The report showed that the demand for dairy products in the U.S. went from 655 pounds per person in 2020 to 667 pounds per person last year.
That makes dairy more popular than it was in 1960, when it was 659 pounds, and close to what it was in 1959, when it was 672 pounds.
In other words, Elvis was in the Army the last time Americans wanted as much dairy as they do now. And remember that in 1959, there were only a little more than half as many people living in the United States as there are now. And exports, which now make up almost 20% of domestic production, were almost nonexistent back then.
The slow decline of fluid milk has kept going, according to data from the USDA. But the number of people who eat American-style cheese reached a new high last year.
But even though the types of dairy products people eat change over time, the overall trend is clear and impressive. The gain in 2021 is the seventh in the last eight years.
Even though non-dairy products are becoming more and more of a threat, and consumers are becoming more and more picky, and even though things like diet fads and pandemics can cause problems, consumers continue to find dairy more and more useful, important, and preferred. That shows how hard dairy farmers and the industry as a whole work.
