During a March Dairy Foods “Trends in Product Development” webinar, John Crawford, senior vice president of Client Insights, Dairy at Circana, a Chicago-based market research firm, noted that cottage cheese and yogurt are sales are hot. He added cream cheese and sour cream could be the next robust cultured dairy segments. Let’s see how Circana’s data for the 52-week period ending Feb. 22 played out.

According to the market research firm, yogurt dollar sales reached $13.1 billion for that timeframe, a 14% year- over-year (YoY) jump compared to the same period the prior year. Yogurt unit sales came in just shy of 4.6 billion, a 6% YoY advancement.

Although its sales are a fraction of yogurt’s, cottage cheese must be highlighted next. Simply stated, the cultured dairy category had a fantastic year ending Feb. 22. Its dollar sales topped $2 billion for the period ending Feb. 22, reaching just shy of $2.1 billion, a YoY increase of 19%. Unit sales came in at 635 million, a 14% YoY jump, according to Circana.

Looking at individual company performance in cottage cheese, private label led the way with $673 million in dollar sales, a 10% YoY rise, paired well with a 7% YoY unit sales increase to 225 million. Several of the top 10 sellers in this category had excellent years, including No. 2 Daisy Brand, No. 3 Lactalis Heritage Dairy, No. 4 Good Culture, No. 6 Kemps and No. 7 Darigold.

Dallas, Texas-based Daisy’s dollar sales jumped 25% YoY to $441 million, as well as a 22%-unit sales jump to 139 million. Meanwhile, Albany, N.Y.-based Lactalis Heritage’s cottage cheese dollar sales were $284 million, a 28% YoY jump, paired with a 14% YoY increase to 94 million. Irvine, Calif.-based Good Culture’s dollar sales gained 24% YoY to $233 million, along with a 17%-unit sales rise to 63 million. St. Louis Park, Minn.-based Kemps saw dollar sales pick up 32% YoY to $59 million, as well as unit sales gaining 23% YoY to 16 million. Seattle-based Darigold had the largest dollar sales percentage-point increase in the subcategory, jumping 34% YoY to $55 million, paired nicely with a 31%-unit sales rise to 9.9 million.

Switching gears to sour cream, the overall category served mixed results, per Circana data. Dollar sales rose 2% YoY to $1.94 billion for the year ending Feb. 22, but unit sales suffered a small loss of 0.7% YoY to 708 million. Despite these mixed results, some of the top 10 sellers of sour cream had solid years. No. 1 seller Daisy Brand’s dollar sales gained 3% YoY to $1.1 billion, representing more than double the sales of any competitor. Daisy’s unit sales picked up 2% YoY to 379 million. Meanwhile, No. 5 seller Lala Branded Products stands out in sour cream sales. The Dallas-based company’s dollar sales skyrocketed by 45% YoY to $17.4 million, with unit sales gaining a similar 43% YoY to 4.1 million.

Mixed cream cheese results

The cream cheese category, consisting of cream cheese-brick, cream cheese-soft, cream cheese-whipped and cream cheese-all other forms, provided some good news and some bad news for the year ending Feb. 22. Overall, cream cheese sales dropped by 3% YoY to just under $3 billion, while unit sales had a small loss of 0.3% YoY to 806 million. According to Circana, the largest subcategory in terms of dollar sales was cream cheese-brick. The subcategory’s dollar sales dropped by 3% YoY to $1.3 billion. Cream cheese-brick unit sales declined by 1% YoY to 359 million. The No. 1 seller in this subcategory was Kraft Heinz. The Chicago- and Pittsburgh-based company’s dollar and unit sales both suffered a 2% YoY loss to $859 million and 205 million, respectively.

However, there were two huge standouts in the cream cheese-brick subcategory: No. 3 seller Tillamook County Creamery Association and No. 4 seller Flora Food Group. Tillamook, Ore.-based Tillamook’s dollar sales jumped by 38% YoY to just shy of $8 million, bested by a 41%-unit sales rise advancement to 2.4 million. Flora, whose U.S. headquarters are in Hackensack, N.J., enjoyed an 83% YoY dollar sales gain to $4.8 million, paired well with a 75%-unit sales gain to 1.1 million, per Circana data.

As for cream cheese-soft, the subcategory’s dollar sales dropped 4% YoY to $1.26 billion. Kraft Heinz again had the most sales in this subcategory. Its dollar sales dipped by 5% YoY to $752 million, while unit sales dropped by 4% YoY to 141 million. A big star in terms of sales growth in the cream cheese-soft subcategory was No. 7 seller Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery Inc. The Sebastopol, Calif.-based company’s dollar sales skyrocketed by 50% YoY to $4.5 million, while unit sales topped 1 million, a 38% YoY increase.

Cream cheese-whipped had a positive year in both dollar and unit sales. The subcategory’s dollar sales gained 2% YoY to $362 million, as well as a 4%-unit sales gain to 98 million. Once again, Kraft Heinz was the sales leader, Circana reveals. Its dollar sales eked out a 0.4% YoY increase to $213 million, while its unit sales picked up 1% YoY to 43 million. Despite a positive year overall for the subcategory, only two more of the top 10 sellers enjoyed dollar sales gains for the period ending Feb. 22. One was private label, the No. 2 seller, whose dollar sales rose 4% YoY to $153 million, along with a 6%-unit sales jump to 55 million. The other was Franklin Foods Inc. The Delray Beach, Fla.-based company’s dollar sales came in at $380,146, a 2% YoY rise, but its unit sales dropped by 2% YoY to 131,816.

Cream cheese-all other forms had the best year of all cream cheese subcategories, with dollar sales rising 7% YoY to just shy of $35 million. Unit sales had a large jump of 65% YoY to 1.8 million, states Circana. Private label, the No. 1 seller in this subcategory, had an outstanding year. Its dollar and unit sales both jumped 313% YoY to $2.2 million and 731,949, respectively. Also enjoying an excellent year in the cream cheese-all other forms subcategory were No. 3 seller Fromageries Bel Inc. — a division of Bel Group — whose dollar sales jumped by 149% YoY to $566,177, along with a 117%-unit sales rise to 89,763.

No. 4 seller El Latino Foods Inc. also joined this “triple-digit YoY gainers club.” The Doral, Fla.-based company’s $237,122 in dollar sales were good enough for a 199% YoY increase, paired well with a 187%-unit sales rise to 118,174. Last but certainly not least is the one company that produced a quadruple-digit gain in the cream cheese-all other forms subcategory for the period ending Feb. 22. This honor belongs to London, Ontario, Canada-based Nuts for Cheese, whose dollar sales skyrocketed by 5,305% YoY to $147,886. As impressive as this figure is, it was bested by a 6,651% YoY unit-sales jump to 23,116.