A new report by New York-based Nielsen shows that store brand sales jumped by nearly 10% in 2017 in mass merchandisers, club stores and dollar stores, while the mass channel came closer than ever before to overtaking traditional supermarkets as the place where consumers buy their groceries.

A growing number of food and beverage processors claim to be part of the local food movement. But for many of them, the definition of "local" is a bit of a stretch.

Ice cream formulation and processing have historically complied with the provisions of the U.S Standards of Identity (SOI) for Frozen Desserts with regard to composition, weight and, specifically, allowable ingredients.

Natural cheese continues to dominate in the cheese category. The natural cheese category showed dollar sales up 0.3% to $12.9 billion, while unit sales stayed at $3.9 billion, according to data from Chicago-based market research firm IRI for the 52 weeks ending Dec. 31, 2017.

Glanbia plc, Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA) and Select Milk Producers Inc. said they finalized an earlier-announced joint venture partnership to build, supply and operate a planned large-scale cheese and whey production facility in Michigan.