Dairy market takes its foot off the gas a bit

The question is whether strong conclusions should be drawn from this immediately. A real spring wave with sharply falling prices is not yet on the horizon. Unprocessed spot milk is below the payout prices of the factories in terms of price level, but that has been the case for some time. 

What is particularly striking this week is the relatively strong drop in the concentrate price. The DCA quotation for skimmed milk concentrate has fallen by more than 8% compared to last week, mainly due to a more generous supply from France and (partly because of that) also from Germany.

This had no noticeable effect on the listing of skimmed milk powder (one of the products made from skimmed milk concentrate). Skimmed milk powder remains stable in the market, although there is a small plus for unstandardized (feed) product. On the export markets, skimmed powder is mainly affected by the weaker dollar, which makes American product more competitive again.

The cream quotation also fell, in absolute terms even more than the concentrate quotation, but in percentage terms the damage was limited, because only 2,35% of the cream quotation was lost. The butter quotation was also affected somewhat, but it only fell by a good 1%. The availability of butter remains tight despite everything. Even in Eastern Europe, there is no cheaper and/or additional supply to be found.

Partly due to the high cheese production, the market for milk fat also remains tight. There has been some relaxation on the market for whey concentrate. The price of this has fallen further. On the whey powder market, this has had little effect.

The listing for whey powder feed is stable, the listing for whey powder food feels a bit firmer and the higher WPCs and WPIs remain very expensive. The latter are listed at more than €20.000 per tonne.