Data is showing that in 2021, 60.5% of all U.S. dairy fat went to cheese and butter products. Cheese topped the list with 42.1%, according to USDA. Butter accounted for 18.3% of all dairy fat usage from U.S. dairy farms. The cheese figure is a slight drop from the record 42.8% share in 2018, while butterfat has increased over the prior year.

Throughout the past year, 3.9 billion pounds of dairy fat went into cheese vats compared to 2.3 billion pounds in 2000. Due to this, total fat production has grown from 6.2 billion pounds to 9.3 billion pounds in two decades. Meanwhile, a category that lost market share is fluid milk. Beverage milk accounted for 10.6% of total dairy fat production, the lowest in 20 years.

Read more on U.S. dairy fat and its uses here.