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?

You’ve read before in this column and likely in other ag and food business publications about rising global dairy demand, rising dairy appetites in emerging markets and rising export opportunities for U.S. suppliers. This time, let’s get specific and delve more deeply into just what “globalization” looks like for cheese.

The great wines and spirits of Europe had a great impact on the world’s palate over the centuries. Yet, in the 1980s, the European Union (EU) began to regret that many countries were creating unwelcome competition by matching—and sometimes exceeding—the quality of what it considered its heritage products. Therefore, the bloc sought to regain control of the Old World names.

December 2010 U.S. dairy export data is released today, after this edition of Cheese Market News goes to press. So I can’t give you the exact year-end numbers on U.S. cheese exports. But whether U.S. cheese exports topped 165,000 metric tons or 168,000 metric tons (365 million lbs. or 370 million lbs.) is somewhat beside the point. The bigger takeaway from 2010 is just how far we’ve come as a cheese supplier to the world—and how far we can and must go.

There’s a general pattern to how cultures new to dairy take up the products—a learning curve of acceptance. It goes something like this: milk powder to fluid milk to yogurt to cheese. China is nearing the cheese stage.

Earlier this year, for the first time, Burger King’s 38 Taiwanese stores began using U.S. cheese on their menus. The debut (on two combo meals and six a la carte burgers) was accompanied by a major promotion for the chain’s made-to-order “Big” burgers.

The global economic recovery is solidly under way in developing countries. Economic fortunes are “reflected in dairy demand [with] strong buying from developing Asia, the Middle East and North Africa,” notes Rabobank. With the developing world getting back on the dairy consumption growth track, U.S. cheese makers have an opportunity to energize sales in a number of regions where they currently sit on the low end of the market-share scale.

On paper, based on published cheese, butter and powder prices, U.S. dairy suppliers currently have a huge edge over European Union (EU) and Oceania exporters. The casual observer may wonder why then U.S. overseas sales aren’t quickly ramping back up. In reality, the apparent pricing advantage isn’t always quite what it seems.