Milk coming out of Wisconsin’s dairy farms contains more butterfat than ever before. That’s good news for farmers but is forcing some cheesemakers to find expensive workarounds to keep their products consistent. Dairy farmers are paid for their milk by its weight, which is affected by solid components like fat and protein. And over the last 10 to 15 years, dairy scientists and farmers have figured out how to maximize the fat component through genetic selection and what they feed their cows. Between the 1980s and 2010, the average fat content in milk in the U.S. stayed between 3.5 and 3.9 percent . Between 2010 and 2024, that number rose sharply to 4.24 percent. Some Wisconsin dairy producers have reported percentages of nearly 5 percent.For a while, that was a good thing for everyone, said Dean Sommer, cheese and food technologist at the Center for Dairy Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Farmers were making more money on their milk, and cheesemakers were getting ...