Butter and cheese prices remained the same this week on the European spot market, while skim milk powder (SMP) and whole milk powder (WMP) increased by €15/t and decreased by €10/t respectively.

So not much happening in the dairy trade in Europe. More globally, the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) increased by 1.8% at this week’s auction – the first auction in three weeks.

The big movers here was cheese, with cheddar increasing by a significant 8% and mozzarella up by 2.3%.

Cheese prices were under pressure at recent auctions and at €3,950/t they are now very closely aligned to the €4,000/t price in Europe for cheddar.

There was 19,231t of product sold at the GDT auction this week, which is up on the last auction and the first increase in traded product at the platform in more than six months.

Powders performed strongly this week too, with WMP increasing by 2.4%, although SMP was more or less flat at 0.4% of a price rise compared with the last auction.

Butter also increased by 2.1% at the GDT. The overall GDT index is at 1,106, which is 8.4% higher than this time last year and more or less unchanged from its recent peak in February. To put that in context, it peaked at 1,593 in March 2022.

Some of the bounce in the GDT this week could be attributed to the poor milk supply results from New Zealand announced last week, which is down 3.47% on the same month last year.

The official figures for Ireland were also announced this week, with a 6% decline registered for March 2024 compared with March 2023.