The Irish Farmers Journal understands that for the fourth consecutive time, all bids in the latest SMP tender were rejected.
The rejections mean that more than 350,000t of SMP is still in storage.
The Irish Farmers Journal has learned that the maximum bid offered was €1803.90/t – which is again below the market price placed on the SMP by the European Commission. The only tenders came from Poland and France.
Those respective tenders were for small volumes, too. The bids lodged were for quantities of 1,400t.
Over the course of the four tenders, only 40t of product has been sold. For that sale, there were bids of €2,150/t and €2,200/t.
Commission line
The European Commission is refusing to sell SMP below its value. This is to send a signal to the market that it values the product in storage.
Shelf life of powder
Food only has a 15-month shelf life. After that, it becomes a feed product. The Commission is now faced with the situation that some of the product, in the region of 25,000t, passed from being food to feed at the end of January.
This will be the case for a further 5,000t by the end of March.
Feed is usually sold at a discount of €100/t to €150/t on the price of food.
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