Cheese heads don't need to be bleu: Experts say predictions that California will soon overtake Wisconsin as the nation's top cheese producer are unlikely to come true.
The Golden State and its happy cows gained quickly on Wisconsin in the last decade, but plants in California are maxing out while efforts to boost production in Wisconsin are paying off, said Dick Groves, longtime owner of trade publication Cheese Reporter in Madison, Wis.
Groves helped spark the friendly competition between the states 10 years ago with an editorial that predicted California would overtake Wisconsin in cheese production by 2005. He later amended it to 2010 and then, last month, to "not any time soon."
New numbers showing a growing gap between Wisconsin and California prompted Groves to abandon his earlier prediction.
"Cheese production in the two states moved in opposite directions -- Wisconsin's went up and California's went down," he said.
About half of the 9.7 billion pounds of cheese made in the U.S. comes from the two states, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service. Production has grown much more rapidly in California in the last decade, with large plants opening year after year.
Wisconsin's lead in annual cheese production shrank to about 164 million pounds last year, according to the service. Last July, California came within less than 6 million pounds of Wisconsin in monthly production.
But then the gap started growing again, reaching 30 million pounds in March.
The quick shift is partly attributed to two plants closing in California last year, while two opened in Wisconsin this year, Groves said.
In California, Dairy Farmers of America closed an American cheese plant in Corona, saying it was unprofitable, and Lactalis USA Inc. closed a specialty cheese plant in Turlock.
Meanwhile, Foremost Farms USA idled a plant in Waumandee in western Wisconsin in January 2007, retooled it to make a premium type of cheddar and reopened it in March. The temporary shutdown was "not insignificant" in terms of the state's cheese production, Foremost Farms spokeswoman Joan Behr said.
Also in March, BelGioioso Cheese Inc. opened its fifth plant in Wisconsin.
California now has 61 cheese plants compared with Wisconsin's 124. The Golden State's plants are larger, but they're pretty much operating at full capacity while Wisconsin's could probably make a bit more, federal and state agricultural officials said.
