It's been clear for some time that last year's high milk prices had a detrimental effect on sales. There's also evidence that cheese sales were slowed when the increased cost of raw milk was passed on to consumers.
A look at quarterly sales of natural cheese shows that as dollar sales went up in the last three quarters of 2004, unit sales began to lose momentum. For processed slices, the picture is less clear. That category was shrinking by both dollar and unit measures before the prices of raw milk jumped last spring. But afterward, dollar sales increased, while unit sales were shrinking at a slower rate.