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Ingredient prices

Cheddar cheese price per pound

Natural cheddar, US city average. Used in enough places on a typical American menu that a move here shows up across the whole food cost line rather than in one dish.

Also known as cheese, natural cheddar, or block cheddar.

October 2026 · US city average

$6.13

per lb

1 month
+2.5%
3 months
+2.9%
12 months
+1.4%

2024-01 to 2026-09

6.135.51Jan '24Sep '26

What the last 12 months did to a plate

Representative portions and volumes — substitute your own. The point isn't the exact figure, it's that a +1.4% move on one ingredient turns into a specific annual number on a specific dish, and that number is usually larger than it feels.

DishUsesCost todayChange per platePer year at 412/wk
Cheeseburger (1 slice)1 oz$0.38+$0.01+$112.48
Mac and cheese3 oz$1.15+$0.02+$106.47
Grilled cheese2.5 oz$0.96+$0.01+$61.42
Nachos4 oz$1.53+$0.02+$120.12

Volumes differ per row — each is a plausible weekly count for that dish. Computed from the BLS series above; your supplier price will differ by region, volume and grade.

What moves this price

  • Milk supply and butterfat. Cheese competes directly with butter for milk fat.
  • Block market. Commodity cheese trades actively and moves faster than most dairy retail prices suggest.
  • Export demand. Meaningful and variable; it can tighten domestic supply with no domestic cause.

Buying notes

  • Pre-shredded costs more per pound, contains anti-caking starch that changes how it melts, and saves real labour. Whether it's worth it is a prime cost question, not a food cost one.
  • Block cheese shredded in house has effectively no yield loss, which pre-shredded's price premium has to beat before it's genuinely more expensive.
  • Cheese is a portioning problem more than a purchasing one. A hand-laid "slice" that drifts from 1 oz to 1.4 oz on a dish selling 400 a week is a real number — weigh twenty of them, see portion control.

This is the national average. Yours is the one that matters.

Review a supplier invoice and the affected recipe in Marji to check your own plate cost. Quantities, units, usable yields and ingredient costs need review before a margin can guide a price decision. Ongoing costing starts with a free 14-day trial, with no card required; continued costing access requires a paid plan.

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To cost a recipe with your own purchase price and usable yield, compare free recipe costing apps and their plan limits. The guide includes a calculation you can check before entering your full menu.

Recent ingredient cost and pricing guides

Put market changes in context, check a dish with your own costs, and decide how to explain a menu price change.

Related terms