Once the stalwart of dairy, the cheese category has hit some more trying times. If it isn't shredded it just is not doing much.
The growth in natural cheese is still there, but the pace has slowed considerably. A look at quarterly sales in the food, drug and mass merchandiser channels indicates that the 9.8% growth of the first quarter of 2002 dropped to 1.9% by the last quarter before rebounding a bit at the beginning of 2003. That's dollar sales, but units show a lot more uniformity. Retail prices may be coming down, as the commodity prices have stayed low for more than a year.