Pounds imported into the US

[merlin]

I'm trying to locate the information on the quantity of pounds imported into the US from different countries along with a breakdown of the types of cheeses impoted.  Anyone have any ideas?

[webmaster]

Good question, with all the foreign cheese on shelves of US stores, of course the reciprocal question is how much exported from US which of course is harder to see.

I found UN database http://data.un.org/Data.aspx?d=ComTrade&f=_l1Code:5 I used left side filters Country = USA, Year = latest data is 2006, and More filter on 5 categories of cheese that I could see: Fresh, Grated, Processed, Blue Veined and basically Everything Else, the by far the largest category. Sadly not the brie vs cheddar that I think you are looking for. For "Everything Else" for 2006 cheese imports to US were 183,983,465 kg (404,763,623 lb), re-exports were 1,019,101 kg (2,242,022 lb) and exports were sadly only 32,438,447 kg (71,364,583 lb). This means slightly over 1 lb of imported cheese for every American resident, which seems low as a % as we eat way more than 1 lb per year in our family  ;D. Do you have any info on US cheese consumption? Anyway, in summary, for this category in 2006, the US imported (after re-exports) 5.65 times as much as exported! A bad example of the US's poor deficit of trade . . .

But! It's getting better, here is an article on 2007 "Exports increased 24 percent by volume and 59 percent by value over 2006" http://www.flex-news-food.com/pages/15317/Dairy/Milk/USA/us-dairy-exports-grow-2007-likely-2008.html, it's a start, but a long road up, maybe the article's cited report has more detailed info than the UN's website?

Hope this helps . . .

[webmaster]

Also just found this older 2004 article http://www.allbusiness.com/food-beverage/food-industry-dairy-dairy-products/5542373-1.html that says "Americans consumed 8.8 billion pounds of cheese in 2003", so that means imports are roughly in the order of 1 in every 50 lb.

[kali000]

Last option continue with natural rind and age at 85% RH brushing them occasionally to avoid mold growth.
You could oil the rind to minimize further thickening of the rind\drying out.

[H-K-J]

Last option continue with natural rind and age at 85% RH brushing them occasionally to avoid mold growth.
You could oil the rind to minimize further thickening of the rind\drying out.

HUH???  ???

[jbrewton]

HKJ,

I think this was another spam post.  Seen a few of these in the last week or so.  So random, and almost funny when taken in the context of the original post.

JB

[Stinky]

My fancy new Science of Cheese book (2014, highly reccomended [It's like all the helpful advice and knowledge from the forum in one book]) says that in 2011, the US exported 494 million pounds and imported 313 million pounds. It has a little chart, with which countries export which types of cheeses to US, as follows

Blue mold: Denmark, Germany, France
Cheddar: United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland
Edam and Gouda: Netherlands
Gruyère: Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland
Italian type: Argentina, Italy
Swiss and Emmentaler: Finland, Norway, France, Switzerland
All others: France, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Italy.

[bill shaver]

this will change when the CETA trade deal is fully implemented.