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Butter strong, cheese market mixed

Katie Burgess with Ever.ag tells Brownfield there has been a lot of activity from buyers recently, with over 100 loads of butter traded between August 12^th and the 16th.  “That was a new all-time high since daily trading began back in 2006, so lots of butter trading on the exchange. Prices continue to hold at a $3.10 to $3.20 where we have been.”  Some butter was sold Tuesday, August 27th above that, topping $3.22 per pound.

Burgess says the butter market is going to be one to watch closely. “Think back to 2022 and 2023, both of those years right after Labor Day and into early October, we saw the butter market soar to new all time highs in those years individually, and so the question is, are we going to make another run for it here in 2024?”

Burgess says butter already set new record sales highs in January, February, and March of this year, which is not traditionally the high demand season.  She says the question now is, did buyers stock up then or are they about to make another buying record?  Burgess says the butter market is a delicate one, and it’s unclear how much demand is going to be there next month when the traditional baking season begins to ramp up. 

Last week’s Global Dairy Trade event saw higher prices for most dairy products, but Cheddar cheese prices were down.  Burgess tells Brownfield there are mixed signals in the cheese market.  “Milk prices for cheese have gone higher over the past month so we’ll see the fact that prices have gone up a lot seems to suggest that it’s a little bit tighter somewhere.” 

USDA released its cold storage data Friday, showing July cheese stocks were down slightly from June and down 6% from July of 2023 at 1.4 billion pounds.