Leading the rise was butter and milkfat products. The average winning price for butter was up 13.2% to US$3558/t. Butter milk powder also increased by more than 10%. Anhydrous milk fat increase 6.8% on average to US$4493/t which followed a 10.8% gain at the previous auction on December 16.
Overall 33,669 tonnes of product was offered as the normal seasonal decline from Fonterra continued. The total offering also continued the trend of sitting below the previous seasons volume. This auction had 27.5% less volume offered than the January 7 auction 2014. Once again there were limited offerings from companies other than Fonterra. European company Arla offered skim milk powder (SMP) in Contract 2 only, while US companies DairyAmerica and Land O'Lakes did not offer any.
A reduced offering of SMP from Fonterra had Contract two prices for NZ medium heat product increasing 5.9%, to more than recover from the fall in price at the previous auction and reach the highest price since the October 1 auction. However, on average across all SMP offered, prices had increased by a more muted 2.8%.
Whole milk powder (WMP) prices rose by 1.6% on average to US$2307/t. This was the second consecutive rise for WMP prices, but with the combined rise over the past two auctions totalling only 3.5%, average WMP prices were still 3.9% lower than the November 18 auction prices.
Other products offered on the GDT auction were cheese and rennet casein which had average price increases of 3.2% and 4.2% respectively.
