It was another steady week on the dairy scene, with only very marginal changes in price.

The main mover was butter, which increased in price by €100/t to hit €7,220/t.

There are more price rises to come in butter over the coming months if the futures are anything to go by, with €7,400 to €7,500/t available for June and July deliveries.

The powder market is flat, with no change to the price of skim milk powder (SMP), although whole milk powder (WMP) did fall by €15/t this week. That’s a combined price fall of €105/t in WMP over the last six weeks.

Weak demand and plenty of supply is the probable cause.

Word on the ground is that there was a lot of pressure to process all of the milk that was delivered across Ireland over the last few weeks and the easiest way to deal with that wave of milk was to dry it and bag it.

That won’t maximise returns, but that’s the trade off with a seasonal supply curve.

A lot of milk in the northern France/Belgium region is traded on the spot market, which is a good position for farmers when the market is going up, but bad when the market is going down.

Production-wise, the EU released supply figures for January to March this week and the figures are stark.

Irish supplies

While Irish supplies are up 5.1% on a horrendous 2024 period, supplies in 2025 are down in Germany by 2.5% and by 2% in France.

Dutch milk supplies are down 1.9% for January to March, but are down 2.3% for January to April.