Friday, March 29, 2024

US dairy exports paced by milk powder

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Nonfat dry milk/skim milk powder (NDM/SMP) remains the brightest spot in US-export performance with overseas sales at 42,896 tonnes in January, up 23% from the prior year and the most ever for that month.
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Suppliers posted large gains in sales to Southeast Asia (+58% year-over-year), led by the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam. Sales to Mexico also were above a year ago (+6%), though volume was lower than the levels moved in the last four months of 2015.

Exports of several other product categories were above a year ago, though gains are relative to a weak performance in January 2015. US exporters shipped 138,089 tonnes of milk powders, cheese, butterfat, whey and lactose for the month, 10% higher than the prior year, but the lowest since last January (on a daily-average basis).

Overall exports were valued at $362.3 million, down 10% from last year, and the lowest figure since January 2011 – a reflection of very soft global dairy markets. Sales to almost every market lagged prior-year levels, with the exception of South America, which was up 18%. The majority of those South American sales were NDM/SMP, cheese and infant formula. Main customers were Peru, Chile and Colombia. Peru, in fact, was the number 10 market for US dairy products in January.

January cheese exports of 21,952t were down 8% from the prior year and the lowest since December 2012. Sales to South Korea (-57%) and Japan (-16%) were down, offsetting a 30% increase in shipments to Mexico.

Exports of whey products were 33,199t in January, up 7% from the previous year. Shipments of whey protein concentrate (WPC) were up 20% year-over-year, offsetting declines in exports of whey protein isolate (-20%) and dry sweet whey (-1%). Overall whey sales to China were down 8%, despite a big jump (+39%) in shipments of WPC.

Other than lactose (+25%), exports of other products have dwindled. Shipments of butterfat were just 2513t (up fractionally from last January), while exports of whole milk powder were down 58% and milk protein concentrate were down 10%.

On a total milk solids basis, US exports were equivalent to 12.5% of US milk production in January, down from 14.0% in 2015. Imports were equivalent to 4.4% of production, the highest since February 2009.

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