Year Ends With Strong Milk Product Manufacture Data

WASHINGTON - Feb 4/03 - SNS -- The 20-02 calendar year ended with a solid performance by the dairy food manufacturing sector, with most major product categories showing monthly and year over year increases.

In its latest report, the USDA said total cheese output (excluding cottage cheese) was 732 million pounds, 4.0% above December 2001 and 2.6% above November 2002. American type cheese production totaled 312 million pounds, slightly below December 2001 but 7.0% above November 2002.

Butter production was 127 million pounds in December, 3.2% above December 2001 and 21.8% above November 2002.

Frozen dessert: (comparisons with December 2001): ice cream, regular (hard) --- 58.3 million gallons, up 6.9%; ice cream, lowfat (total) --- 24.1 million gallons, down 6.2%; ice cream, nonfat (hard) --- 1.15 million gallons, down 4.2%; sherbet (hard) --- 3.39 million gallons, up 18.2%; and frozen yogurt (total) --- 5.11 million gallons, up 11.1%.

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