In this week’s episode of The Milk Check, we strap in for a wild ride. From tariff chaos to spring flush milk surpluses, the market is anything but predictable.

Join Ted Jacoby and the team of experts as we cover key topics, including:

• The spring milk flush and its impact on processing plants


• Cream demand firming up but still long


• Butter market volatility and how cream shortages are affecting prices


• Tariffs and how they’re impacting the international dairy trade

Our team of experts break down the current dairy climate and offer insights on navigating these turbulent waters.

Listen now to The Milk Check episode 76: Tariff talk takes dairy on a wild ride.

The Jacoby Team:

• Brianne Breed, senior vice president, cheese trading


• Diego Carvallo, director, dry dairy ingredient trading


• Gus Jacoby, president, fluid dairy ingredients & dairy support


• Jacob Menge, vice president of risk management & trade strategy


• Joe Maixner, director of sales, dairy ingredients


• Josh White, vice president, dairy ingredients


• Miguel Aragón, director of international cheese sales, Latin America


• Mike Brown, vice president, dairy market intelligence


• Ted Jacoby III, CEO & president, cheese, butter & dry ingredients

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Intro (with music): Welcome to The Milk Check, a podcast from T.C. Jacoby & Company, where we share market insights and analysis with dairy farmers in mind

Ted Jacoby III: Welcome everybody. It is April 11th, 2025. We’ve had a lot going on in the last couple of weeks. Trump initiated some tariffs, took some tariffs off, and raised some tariffs. I think we landed in various different spots when the dust started to settle, and I’m pretty sure that the dust hasn’t settled yet. So, this market discussion could be completely out of date by the time we get back on Monday.

I’ve asked a lot of my traders to join us for this discussion. My brother Gus is representing the Fluid Group and talking a little about milk and cream. We’ve got Diego with international sales and non-fat. We’ve got Brianne here to talk about cheese. We’ve got Joe here to talk about butter, and we’ve got Josh here to talk about whey, as well as Miguel to help Bri with cheese. And then we’ve got Mike Brown joining us.

And so we’re just going to go around the horn and talk about our various dairy products. Obviously, we can’t avoid the topic of tariffs today. Let’s start where the milk starts, and start with milk. Gus, what’s going on in milk right now?

Gus Jacoby: Well, we’re in the middle of the spring flush. So, in areas like the Mideast, Northeast, and even areas on the Eastern Atlantic, you have some pretty long milk. But an interesting dichotomy for the discussion is that there are areas of the country that aren’t so long. It’s mostly areas where a lot of milk-processing capacity has been added, like the I-29 corridor up in South Dakota or down the Southwest.

Those areas aren’t quite as tight, but nonetheless, where it is long, for example, in the Mideast, there have been a number of plant shutdowns for periods that have made it really long for certain stretches. You add in some higher components, and you’re in for some interesting times right here in the middle of April.

Ted Jacoby III: So we’re about a week away from Easter. Do we think things will get even longer over the Easter weekend before they maybe start to clean up a little bit?

Gus Jacoby: Some plants that were down are coming back online, but not all of them, so I think you will have a little bit of both. It’s hard to figure out exactly how long we’ll be over Easter. But I think it’s safe to say that you’ll likely have enough plant shutdowns during that holiday weekend, and it’ll still be ugly.

Ted Jacoby III: And what about cream? Cream has been the bane of many people’s existence this year, especially in the Midwest. Is it still ugly? Or is it starting to get better?

Gus Jacoby: It’s not as ugly as it was. How about that? Ice cream demand has kicked in; perhaps some other Class II products have shown some demand for cream again. That, in addition to some longer skim-solids, probably provides those cheese plants with some fortification that can hold some fat back from there.

Those two have firmed up the market a bit, so we’ve seen some higher multiples than we’ve seen maybe a month ago. Nonetheless, Ted, it’s still long. I don’t want to act like it’s gotten any significant tightness with what I just said. There’s more demand, and some cheese plants aren’t selling quite as much cream as they were before.

Ted Jacoby III: How do you expect this cream situation and these low-cream multiples? How is this going to play out as we get into the heat of the middle of the summer?

Gus Jacoby: That is a very good question. I’ve been trying to find some answers to that. I’ve engaged Joe a little bit to help me figure out this butter market a little bit. But there’s no doubt that the cream has been a butter maker’s dream, so to speak, and the fact that they can go out, endure these long markets, and call their price. At least, that was the case in the middle of Q1.

Not so much now, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t still long, and those numbers aren’t very profitable for them. They are. Nonetheless, as we know, most of your butter inventory is produced during this term, and the rest of the year is somewhat unknown. And I’m going to hand that off to Joe.

Ted Jacoby III: Joe, is this butter market going to stay around where it is? If you were talking cream, we sure did feel like it should be going lower, even if it’s already down in the low twos. Well, where’s it going to go from here?

Joe Maixner: As to where it’s going to go from here, I’m not going to give you any specifics because I don’t have that on my crystal ball. But I would say that we’re probably range-bound for a little while here.

Alluding to what Gus was talking about on the cream, we’ve seen a lot of excess cream finding homes outside of churns recently. Churns are still getting plenty of creams, but they’re not getting all of the distressed spot creams as they had been earlier in the year.

The big question is, and I hate to go into it already, but it will be the exports. How much product actually gets exported with all of this tariff situation? My personal opinion is that exports for butter really aren’t going to be affected.

There are several different imports for re-export programs out there, as well as the fact that we’re just that much more competitive than the rest of the world, so a 10% tariff on most countries will not stop buyers from bringing in our products.

Ted Jacoby III: Okay. And Gus, before we move on, what about liquid skim-solids? Skim condensed, skim UF milk, borrow, whatnot? Is that market getting better yet?

Gus Jacoby: It’s loosened up a little bit, Ted, but I don’t want to act as if it’s crazy, right? I mean, you can get skim-solids right now. Some areas of the country have taken on the milk and sold skim-solids and cream. They take the milk at a discount and sell it. You’re just in the typical flush mode.

But when we talk about that, you can’t help but talk about the fact that with skim solids now being readily available and probably some good deals out there in the marketplace to be had, that means that fortification solids are available for those cheese plants. Again, the higher butterfat component means you can keep that butterfat in the cheese plant.

I’m not saying that that’s happening in any lengthy term. I think it’s happening on a spot basis. I don’t know what will unfold as we enter the summer and out of the flush.

Ted Jacoby III: I’m going to ask this Gus, both for you and for Diego. I’m unsure if you guys will have the same or different answers. But you think one of the reasons we’ve had skim solids available is because of the non-fat price? That market has been difficult to trade in because the demand is so poor.

Gus Jacoby: I think there’s certainly a lot of powder being made and whatnot. No doubt in this tariff climate, there’s probably some concerns about what will unfold in the future.

But I also think we have really long milk right now, as we always do in the spring flush. And there’s certainly still plenty of powder being dried. So, Diego, do you want to take that from there?

Diego Carvallo: Yeah, I do think it’s part of the reason. The thing is, you have powder where it’s not that needed; let’s put it that way. You have a little bit more powder now that the avian influenza has improved in California. And that product needs exports, while the product that cheese makers need for puri