Say cheese: US enjoying largest surplus in a century

Say cheese, Americans. The United States is enjoying its largest surplus of cheese in more than 100 years, according a report released by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The report on cold storage notes that America has 1.385 billion pounds of cheese stockpiled, the largest total since records were kept beginning in 1917, WXYZ reported.

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That represents a 6 percent increase over 2017 numbers, The Washington Post reported. It's also 16 percent higher since an earlier surplus made a federal cheese buy-up necessary in 2016.

The surplus was caused by too much milk available for dairy processors, the Post reported.

"I anticipate that we'll continue to set these records," John Newton, director of market intelligence at the American Farm Bureau Federation, told the Post. "We're producing more milk. It's inevitable. That milk needs to get turned into something storable."

The lowest stockpile occurred in 1918, the USDA said, when there were 23 million pounds of cheese.

Cox Media Group