Trading has ceased for the Christmas period in most western markets, so there is no change to the prices quoted for the key dairy commodities.

Looking back at the year, it was definitely a case of a year of two halves.

Butter was the star performer in Europe and while the prices were rising and falling for the first few months of the year, the trend line would show it was rising steadily all year to culminate in a price-topping €8,000/t in late autumn.

Considering it ended 2023 at €5,465/t and ended 2024 at €7,185/t, this shows a remarkable turnaround, but hides the fact that for half of the year prices exceeded €7,000/t, with about €1,000/t being wiped off over the last four or five weeks.

The consolation for sellers is that prices rallied slightly at the last week of trading in 2024, so producers will be hoping that the crash has stopped.

Other dairy products didn’t do as well, particularly skim milk powder (SMP), which started the year at €2,530/t and ended the year at €2,580/t, with little positive deviation from these prices through the year.

That takes some of the shine off butter prices, because for every tonne of butter made in Ireland, there is over two tonnes of SMP made.

Whole milk powder (WMP) performed better, starting the year at €3,600/t and ending the year at €4,300/t.

It peaked briefly at over €4,400/t, but, overall, has seen steady and reliable gains over the year.

Cheese was similar in the sense that it had a reasonably good backend, with cheddar starting the year at €4,120/t and ending the year at €4,780/t.