Like the past year, one major theme affecting the cost of food and beverages is inflation. For the 12 months ending Aug. 13, the consumer price index (CPI) rose 3.7% compared to the prior year. Because of inflation, many categories in our State of the Industry issue did exceedingly well dollar-sales wise, but unit sales didn't always sparkle.

When it comes to butter, sales are serving up plenty of aces, with very few faults. 

When U.S. American gymnast and seven-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles goes for the gold at the XXXIII Olympic Summer Games in Paris next year, the 4’ 8” dynamo will bring her artistry, strength, and power to the vault (Yurchenko double pike vault, now named the Biles II), floor exercise, balance beam, and parallel bars.

The co-located event will take place at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort in Clearwater, Florida. 

In terms of ice cream and frozen novelty sales, matching a “Super Bowl champion”-level performance like those of the Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes in 2020 and 2023, which occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic for ice cream, when consumers sought a home indulgence, is difficult to replicate. 

Amazing Ice Cream, Arbo's Cheese Dip, Petit Pot and WonderCow will each receive $30,000 in resources and funding to scale their products in California and will compete for an additional $100,000 in support based on continued performance over a period of one year.

Natural cheese — and the diverse types of shredded, chunks, slices, string/stick, crumbled, cubes, ricotta, and all other forms — generated $17.4 billion in dollar sales, a year-over-year (YoY) increase of 7%.

Milk is getting knocked down by changing consumer demographics and attitudes, but a comeback is viable for the nearly $15.6B category. Milk sales are up due to higher prices, while unit sales fell 3.1%

If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, will it also keep tweens drinking milk through the critical years of bone development and beyond? 

While having one of your cultured products being criticized as lacking cultured flavor is not desirable, those of us who produce cultured dairy products have an even greater fear.