The USDA says January dairy product numbers continue to show butter production growing year over year while cheese is starting slow.

Total cheese production totaled more than 1.1 billion pounds, down slightly more than one percent on the month and up a half of a percent from the prior year. Italian cheese production was down on the month and year while American cheese was up on year but down for the month.

Butter production totaled 207 million pounds, up fractionally from the prior month and seven percent from the last year.

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