Dairy Market Drivers: Consumer Demand for Protein; Gas Prices Rising; and Butter in a Minute!

Quick Bites: Fluid Milk Sales Slide Again

Consumers faced rising prices for many goods and services last year, but gasoline was not one of them. In fact, 2025 was one of the quietest and most stable years for gasoline in nearly two decades, with an average price of $3.10 per gallon. According to GasBuddy, the U.S. national average gasoline price spent the year within a 50.2-cent range, the third-smallest annual range in the past 20 years.
But that quickly changed when military conflict in the Middle East sent crude oil prices skyward in February. Diesel and gasoline followed suit, with US gasoline jumping from the $2.90s last month to last week’s average of $3.50 per gallon.
With more dollars being spent on gas, consumers will have less in their budgets for discretionary spending. In the past, this hurt spending in categories like restaurants, which would be negative for dairy demand.