22 Dec 2021

Whole milk powder average price drops 1.5 percent in global auction

10:27 am on 22 December 2021

Prices took a slight dip at The Global Dairy Trade auction overnight.

milk powder

Photo: 123rf

The average price dropped 1.5 percent to $US4236 (approx $NZ6264) a tonne.

Whole milk powder, which strongly influences payouts for local farmers dropped 3.3 percent to $US3867 a tonne.

The decline follows a steady number of rises at the auction - earlier this month prices hit their highest level in more than seven years.

Prices for everything else including butter, cheese and skim milk powder all rose.

NZX dairy analyst Alex Winning said a drop was bound to happen at one point during the run of upwards prices.

"As bad as it sounds, this result wasn't that surprising; whole milk powder prices have been struggling to shift higher at the same rate as the rest of the products on offer on the GDT platform.

"However, demand for whole milk powder seems steady, taken from the fact that more was sold at this auction than at the last, and the total volume sold was closer to the total volume offered than we've seen for a few months now."

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