Inside: Milk & Food
Lower indicative milk price will not affect Milcobel
How important is a good marriage between fat and protein, the main components of milk? The answer to that question is given by the German Food Economics Institute (IFE). The Belgian dairy Milcobel is not affected by this and is still able to outdo the Dutch processors.
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Slowly but surely, the price of skimmed milk powder is increasing again in May, but the opposite was true during April. This narrowly prevented the price from falling back to the very low level of early 2016. The price for April amounts to 169,2 cents per kilo, which corresponds to a protein price of 12,6 cents per kilo.
Can fat compensate for protein?
The butter price is performing much better. This is a plus and amounts to 419,6 cents per kilo. This translates into a valuation of 18,6 cents per kilo. The question then remains whether the increase in fat is sufficient to compensate for the depreciation of protein. The answer is no. For example, the indicative farm milk price drops to 4 cents per kilo at 31,2 percent fat.
This is an indication that most dairy farmers do not agree with. Neither does Milcobel. The Belgian milk processor announces that it will keep the milk price stable. She does this for the third month in a row, with the milk price continuing to beat Dutch quotations. It also means that the fat price remains at 3,0435 euros per kilo, against a protein price of 5,6522 euros per kilo.
When we translate this into Dutch contents, it yields a milk price of 36,42 euros per 100 kilos of milk. This is for an annual supply of 600.000 kilos of milk. That's a good start to the second quarter.
Have a look at development of milk prices from Milcobel, FrieslandCampina and other processors here.
