Analysis milk
Cheese absorbs most of the blows in a falling market
The price pressure on the dairy market this week mainly affected cheeses, although butter was also hit. Both products are increasingly moving in a supplier market. This is fueled by major players who apparently want to put away extra volumes of cheese.
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With regard to cheeses, the prices for Gouda and Edam foil cheese in particular fell sharply, with the usually slightly more expensive 'Antjes' also having to lose margins.
Prices have not yet returned to the level before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but they are close. In terms of price, Mozzarella is still slightly below the Gouda and Edam foil cheeses, but lost less ground this week. Cheddar was the most competitive, but for both Curd and Mild the price level was below €5.300 per 1000 kilos.
Although previously it was milk powder and butter's turn in the downward relay, the DCA butter quotation also fell considerably further this week. However, the pace here was slightly slower than last week. Various market parties believe that this indirectly seems to have something to do with a kind of Christmas effect. This is more directly visible in the cream market. Due to additional demand, the room quotation even rose slightly again.
A reverse movement was visible with skimmed milk concentrate. The price fell again after last week's small recovery. However, this product is still far too expensive to make milk powder. The concentrate was therefore mainly used for the production of fresh dairy, for desserts or as an ingredient for food service.
The quotations for skimmed milk powder stabilized somewhat, although a persistent price difference is visible between products that find their way onto the internal market in the EU and products that have to enter the world market. The last product category usually yields about €100 to €150 less per tonne.
Whey powder for use in the animal feed industry remains largely stable in price, while whey powder for human food, on the other hand, increased in price again. It is difficult to give a very clear picture of this, because a fairly wide spread of prices is reported.
This also applies to the previously mentioned semi-finished products of cream and skimmed milk concentrate. The cause is the rapidly moving market, where buyers and sellers look for some kind of equilibrium price, but are not successful in doing so.