Inside Milk
German supers unleash butter war again
The German supermarkets started another butter war last week, led by Aldi. Significant price reductions for consumer butter were the result. The regular butter market is fixed.
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Aldi lowered the price of a pack of butter from €1,49 to €1,35 per 250 grams, which translates into a reduction of €0,56 per kilo. This promotion came almost at the same time that Aldi concluded a new butter contract with the dairy at a price level of €4.200 per tonne, or €4,20 per kilo. And that was higher than the previous contract. In addition, trade recorded prices for cream at a level of almost €5.400 per ton last week.
Butter from the Czech Republic
Other German supermarkets followed Aldi's action and sometimes came up with even lower prices. The DCA listing for butter stood at €4.080 per tonne last week, the DCA listing for cream amounted to €5.375 per tonne.
German sources believe that Aldi's action is being carried out with butter of Czech origin. Major European butter traders also believe that Aldi does not use regular contracted butter for the butter stunt campaign. The price development on the butter market may lag behind that on the cream market, but the butter price itself is not showing a downward trend, they believe.