Cream price tops off, raw milk and concentrate peak

The cream price reached a provisional peak this week, it appears the listing of DCA. On average €7.265 was paid per tonne, but prices dropped again towards the end of the week. Product has already been sold for next week between €7.200 and €6.900 per tonne, according to various traders.

Skimmed milk concentrate shows no signs of slowing price growth or erosion. In the past week, quite the opposite was the case. The DCA quotation rose by almost 6% and ended at €3.060 per tonne, almost as expensive as skimmed milk powder.

Concentrate widely applicable
It is therefore normally not worthwhile to turn it into skimmed milk powder. However, it may be that a producer or trader has already sold a certain volume of milk powder on paper, while he still has to deliver the goods. Then powdering is worthwhile to avoid a fine. It may also be that the concentrate is needed for fresh production or even for cheese. Concentrate is a widely applicable product. Skimmed milk is also quite expensive.

Spot milk market fickle
The spot milk quotation is even moving in a downright fickle manner. One week prices drop sharply, then rise sharply again, just like a classic spot market does. It is not about flows of tens of millions of kilos of milk, but rather truckloads, but prices have undeniably risen this week to above €50,00 per 100 kilos. In France, prices between €55,00 and €58,00 per 100 kilos are even paid.

Butter still lags far behind cream in terms of price, although the butter quotation increased again this week by €100,00 to €5.465 per tonne. Very little product is freely available at this price. The supply of butter for the consumer market is tight.

Clothes market for butter
The landscape now looks very different for industrial purposes. There is still quite a bit of frozen Irish butter available for around €5.200 per tonne. There also appears to be Eastern European and Spanish or Portuguese products still available. The image almost arises of a cloth market, where traders suddenly emerge with all kinds of half-forgotten goods. According to reports, American and New Zealand product is also on the way, which will be on the market in December. Still early enough to benefit from European demand.

The picture on the powder market is mixed. Skimmed milk powder rose slightly in price this week. Whey powder prices stabilized or even decreased (for feed destinations). In the meantime, the price for whole milk powder continued to rise considerably to €3.740 per tonne.

Mixed image cheese market
There was also a mixed picture on the cheese market. The quotation for Gouda foil cheese fell slightly, while that of Cheddar and mozzarella rose. This makes Gouda foil cheese cheaper than Cheddar, as is normally the case.

Meanwhile, the price of mozzarella also rose slightly to €3.665 per tonne, although it is certainly not summer anymore. Pizza bakers and other industrial processors, however, do not care much about this.

In the meantime, all these buyers are eagerly awaiting the moment when milk supplies will increase again, which will - they hope - bring dairy prices down again.