The grief continues in the dairy market this week, with further price drops for most of the dairy commodities.

At the European spot market, whole milk powder (WMP) prices fell by €75/t to €3,050/t, while cheddar cheese prices fell by €25/t to €3,225/t.

There was no change for butter prices and skim milk powder (SMP) actually increased this week by €25/t, but that is after a few weeks of heavy price drops.

The grief is not so much that prices have fallen, it’s that they are not increasing and, as a result, it looks like we’ll be stuck with these low prices at market level until at least the autumn.

Traders and milk buyers typically go on holidays in July and August, so don’t expect too much activity over the coming months.

Most will go on holidays knowing that supply and demand won’t have changed too much by the time they come back. The reason for this confidence is that milk supplies are still very strong globally and in Europe.

German milk supplies for the year to date are up over 6% compared with last year, although there are signs of this growth slowing now with the latest figures showing a 0.3% decline on a week-on-week basis.

It would need to decline a lot faster to have more of an impact.

The tide has turned in France, with deliveries now lower than they were last year, which is positive, but milk supply in the Netherlands continues to be strong, with deliveries running about 5% higher year to date compared to 2025.

Meanwhile in the US, milk supplies for May are running 2.4% ahead of the same period last year driven by more cows producing more milk.