The big news in the dairy world this week is the drop in the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index of 2.4%, which is the biggest decline since early September and marks the sixth consecutive drop in the index.

Cumulatively, the index has fallen by 10.8% since early September, which is not good, but a lot less than the fall in dairy commodities in the European spot market.

Take the spot market for butter – this was trading at €6,425/t in early September, but is down to €4,980/t now, which is a 22% drop.

Contrast

Over the same period, cheddar cheese was €4,140/t, but it is now down to €3,465/t, which is a 16% drop.

In contrast, whole milk powder (WMP) was trading at €3,940/t in early September and is back to €3,425/t now, which is a 13% reduction.

So it seems the higher-value products had the most to lose and they lost it faster.

At the GDT auction, the big loser was butter, which fell by 4.3%, while WMP fell by 2.7%.

Cheddar cheese, which doesn’t make up a large part of the sales at the GDT, also declined by a whopping 6.6%.

Despite this, GDT cheddar is still trading at a €400/t premium over European cheddar, which shows the malaise in the European market.

There was no change to the price of skim milk powder (SMP) at the GDT, but it’s notable to say that the price of SMP in Europe increased this week by €10/t to €2,045/t.

While European butter and cheese prices are still dropping, the rate of decline has certainly eased off.