GDT rises another 7.7% at Tuesday auction

The GDT has recorded its third straight lift at this week’s auction in New Zealand with the benchmark dairy index rising a further 7.7%. The GDT has now risen a cumulative 27% since the beginning of August, albeit from a very weak base.

This week’s result was driven by strong gains in the average selling prices of butter, cheddar, whole milk powder (WMP) and, in particular, skimmed milk powder (SMP). SMP, which accounts for about a quarter of all product sold on the GDT auction platform, saw average prices jump 10% to $2,225/t. This was the first meaningful lift in SMP prices in months.

WMP also continued its recent strong price growth with average prices increasing almost 4% to just below $2,800/t. Butter prices rose strongly by 15% to $3,764/t, while cheddar prices were up 9% to $3,436/t.

There was also increases in the average price of anhydrous milk fat (+15%), butter milk powder (+7%), casein (+7%) and lactose (+2%). Almost 36,750t of product were sold at Tuesday’s auction in New Zealand.

Milk prices

The continued improvement in dairy markets has been followed by calls from farmer organisations for milk processors to pass on improved dairy commodity prices to farmers through increasing August milk prices.

ICMSA dairy Chairperson Gerald Quain said that there was no reason that processors in Ireland could not “step up to the mark” and make prices rises proportionate to increases announced by other processors across Europe in recent days.

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