Health and wellness remains top of mind for many consumers, and the desire for clean labels continues to grow. It is trends like these that keep natural cheese sales at the top and processed cheese products scrambling to compete.
In the 52 weeks ended Oct. 6, 2013, the natural cheese category grew dollar sales 2.9% to $11.8 billion and units went up 2.6% to 3.5 billion, according to Information Resources Inc. (IRI), Chicago. But the downward trend continued for processed cheese; in the same time period the processed cheese category saw dollar sales drop 2.4% to $3.1 billion, while units dropped 3.1% to 915.8 million.