Dairy e-commerce platform launches cheese trade

Dairy.com, an independent, Internet exchange serving the dairy industry, announced on Thursday the launch of its cheese-trading pilot.

Seven companies have joined the Dairy.com Cheese Exchange pilot including Kraft Foods, Dairy Farmers of America, Hilmar Cheese, Land O'Lakes, Leprino Foods, Sargento Foods, and Schreiber Foods to validate the functionality of the cheese exchange prior to full industry launch.

The cheese exchange is scheduled to open for the entire dairy industry in November.

"After a successful year of trading cream, milk, and condensed skim, we are very excited to expand Dairy.com's services to include cheese trading, the first of the storable dairy commodities," said Scott Sexton, president of Dairy.com.

"The cheese exchange will for the first time in the dairy industry create a single place for traders to buy and sell an unlimited variety of cheeses regardless of type or specification, creating increased market liquidity and visibility as well as saving time."

The scheduled launch of cheese trading in November will allow, according to dairy.com, exchange members to specify any cheese type, quantity, age, form (block, barrel, or tote), condition, and grade among many other variables.

Like other commodities currently traded on Dairy.com, cheese trading will be open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

In addition to cheese trading, Dairy.com is actively building additional functionality to help the dairy industry create a better way of doing business.

Future releases will include exchanges for other dairy commodities as well as solutions focused on streamlining transportation, physical settlement, and other dairy industry processes.