Young, middle-class Vietnamese are driving foodservice growth and demand for cheese.

A temporary downturn is causing some to wonder.

Letter challenges EU efforts to restrict how U.S. companies market cheese.

Soon-to-be-released report from USDEC details the escalation of Chinese cheese imports and consumption in recent years.

Radio interview with USDEC's Al Levitt tells the story, along with what's needed to stay No. 1.

In a statement, USDEC and others express concern that Canada is working to limit access for highly competitive U.S. products.

U.S dairy export value to Central America rose 2 percent in 2013 to $138 million.

Top chefs from the Middle East taste-tested U.S. cheese at a recent event. They were impressed.

Cheddar for processing is a huge opportunity, but it requires learning customers’ needs and manufacturing specifications.

In 2013, the value of U.S. dairy exports to Vietnam grew 72 percent compared to 2012.

The U.S. is the largest processed cheese manufacturer in the world, but must translate its know-how to foreign markets.

Cheese remains one of the best performers, with volume up 46 percent this January compared to January 2013.

In 2013, America's cheese suppliers held the No. 1 global market share position.

Through the first seven months of 2013, volume jumped 27 percent to 6,503 metric tons.

U.S. cheese exports grew nearly 16 percent in 2012, breaking the $1 billion mark for the first time. This was no fluke, no temporary spike in sales. This was a milestone more than a decade in the making.

In all the media reports about the ambitious global expansion plans of McDonald’s, Subway and the Yum! family of restaurants (Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell), it might seem like the mega-chains are the only international game in town. There is in fact a thriving, locally-based, foodservice-chain second tier in most emerging markets that is expanding rapidly, increasingly beyond national boundaries and into surrounding regions. Often specializing in U.S.-style fare, many of these restaurants are sizeable users of cheese and prime examples of growing but often-overlooked potential customers for U.S. dairy.

U.S. cheese export value through July topped $680 million—well on its way to breaking the $1-billion mark, a more than seven fold increase over 2000. The United States is firmly planted as the No. 3 cheese supplier to the world and we are gaining share.

Since Jan. 1, at least 17 companies have announced significant plans to expand existing cheese manufacturing facilities or build new cheese plants. Geographically, the tally breaks out as follows: one in Japan, one in South America, three in Australia, six in Europe and six in the United States. That does not include projects that started taking milk over the past five months—like Brasil Foods’ new mozzarella plant in Itumbiara, Brazil—or new cheese capacity expansions that are on the drawing boards.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s release of year-end export data today spoke two messages loud and clear: 1) The U.S. industry has traveled a long way on the path toward becoming a consistent global dairy supplier, and 2) the U.S. industry will need to remain vigilant to maintain and build on last year’s solid performance, particularly in the face of tougher market conditions.

Over the past two decades, Oceania and the United States have eaten into the European Union’s (EU’s) stranglehold on global cheese trade. However, the bloc still typically controls more than one-third of total annual export volume, and in 2010, EU market share rose sharply as volume soared by more than 100,000 tons. The bloc’s dominance leaves one to wonder what might happen after the EU removes its restrictive milk quotas in 2015, allowing farmers to expand output as much as their budgets will allow. Will that milk find its way into the cheese vat, making a formidable competitor even more of a threat?