Butter prices took another drop this week and are now just above the €4,000/t mark.

There seems to be no sign of the price drop stopping any time soon.

The further butter drops, the worse the milk price cuts are likely to be.

Whole milk powder (WMP) also took a big drop this week, with the European spot price dropping by €210/t to €2,880/t.

These price cuts are a real sign that the market is still very weak.

According to the latest Ornua market report, it seems to be indicating that prices are now close to the bottom.

There must be a point at which sellers will not sell at, given that they have paid high prices for the milk that went into the product, particularly in the case of longer shelf-life cheese and powders.

On the demand side, the situation is also weak, with sluggish demand at retail level and low demand at food service level as the cost of living is eating into consumers appetite for eating out.

The worrying thing is that supply is continuing to grow, with the latest statistics showing that the US was up by 3.9% in October, which is a huge volume increase.

Similarly, in the EU, the latest stats for September milk shows supplies were up by about 4.3% compared with September 2024.

Ornua is saying that in October alone, supplies across the main dairy exporters increased by a massive 4.3%.

This is huge when one considers that a small increase of 1% to 2% is usually enough to affect the balance of trade around the world.