Market News

Cheese and butter drift lower

Cheese, butter and Class III futures a little lower on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday, nonfat dry milk was steady.

Milk production is at seasonal lows in Western Europe but still more than needed. Low farm prices have not curbed production enough, the European Dairy Commission has allocated funding for intervention purchases and to pay for storage of dairy products. Eastern European production is lower than normal seasonal levels, processors report adequate milk supplies for current demand. Here too, low milk prices have not curbed production as much as hoped-for.

It is springtime in Oceania where low milk prices have prompted some increased culling and spring pasture growth has been slow. Dairy Market News says Australian milk production in August was a little above year-ago levels while New Zealand was slightly below last August.

 

Cooperatives Working Together (CWT) has accepted 6 requests for export assistance from member cooperatives who have contracts to sell 531,314 pounds of Cheddar, Gouda and Monterey Jack cheeses to customers in Asia. The product has been contracted for delivery in the period from November through December 2015.

Year-to-date, CWT has assisted member cooperatives who have contracts to sell 47.676 million pounds of cheese, 25.671 million pounds of butter and 35.556 million pounds of whole milk powder to thirty-five countries on five continents.