European cheese kept climbing over the past two weeks, taking spot Gouda prices and the European mozzarella market to their highest levels of 2026. The move is concentrated in November and December. Several plants were in maintenance just as buyers came looking for year-end volumes, and many of those buyers had held off covering because mozzarella already looked expensive. Dutch milk output also fell 1.7% in September, its first decline this year.
Vesper reads this as a squeeze. Milk keeps coming in well across Europe, solids should improve seasonally from here, and whey keeps cheese valorization strong enough that higher milk prices need not pass straight through to cheese. Once buyers have covered the front, Gouda and mozzarella are expected to ease again before the end of the year.
Emmental is moving for a different reason. Its premium over Gouda has been well under half its usual 2024 and 2025 level for most of this year, which removed the incentive to make more than is contracted, and French Emmental production slowed markedly over the summer. With its long ripening time, lower output now means less Emmental well into next year. Irish Cheddar supply is thinning too, as plants wind down for the winter and Q1 availability will come mostly from product already in store.
In the US, CME cheese block prices have given back most of their October rally, widening the gap to European prices and making exports out of Europe harder.
Read the full cheese market analysis here.
