Americans' growing taste for specialty cheese is prompting Arla to follow European rival such as Glanbia and beef up in the US market.

The co-operative, which owns the Lurpak brand, said it was to expand a dairy in Wisconsin after US sales growth accelerated to 20% so far this year, after 10% expansion in 2009.

The increase reflected a growing taste among Americans for cheese beyond the cheddar-type products, such as Monterey Jack, or processed cheeses which have historically dominated sales.

The market for specialty cheese was showing "rapid development and sales", Susie Moller Hjorth, the Danish group's US country manager, said.

"Higher quality speciality cheese is particularly popular with the more affluent and educated sectors of the population. Considering the size of the country, this is a huge group."

Quest for size

Arla sells US consumers around 16,000 tonnes of cheese a year, about 70% of which is produced at the co-operative's two US dairies, with the balance imported from Denmark.

Besides selling to the delicatessen trade, the co-operative is also attempting to find large commercial buyers for products such as havarti, a semi-soft Danish cows' cheese,

The completion of the Wisconsin dairy expansion next year would leave the group "in a stronger position to compete for large contracts", Ms Moller Hjorth said.

"If we can make our way into the sandwich and burger market with our havarti cheese, our business can grow substantially."

Arla vs Glanbia

Such a development would pitch the group into more direct competition in the US with Glanbia, the Irish dairy group which has been expanding in America since early in the last decade.

Glanbia's dairies, which sell both to cheese retailers and processors, last year produced 340,000 tonnes of American-style cheddar cheese.

The group earlier this month reported "positive market trends" at its American cheese operations, noting that "demand for US cheese remains robust, and markets were higher relative to 2009".

Glanbia earlier this year failed in an attempt to sell-off its legacy Irish operations to focus on its cheese and specialty ingredient businesses.