The latest Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auction has concluded with a hefty drop to the overall index, following a brief respite at the last outing earlier this month.

The most recent – event 258 – concluded today, Tuesday, April 21, with the GDT Price Index down 4.2%.

Lasting two hours and 17 minutes, today’s auction saw 153 participating bidders go head to head across 16 bidding rounds with 113 winning bidders emerging.

A total of 20,601MT of product was sold on the day.

The most dramatic move on the day was actually an increase of 12% for the lactose (LAC) index, with cheddar also seeing a slight lift of 1.9% in index.

All other products tendered on the day recorded decreases however, led by anhydrous milk fat (AMF), which was down 7%, with skim milk powder (SMP) and whole milk powder (WMP) documenting drops of 4.9% and 3.9% respectively.

Butter and rennet casein (RenCas) were also hit with index reductions on the day, recording drops of 3.6% and 3% respectively.

Butter milk powder (BMP) was not offered at this event, while once again sweet whey powder (SWP) was also absent.

Today’s event marks a fifth index reduction in six outings, following a slight increase at the previous auction on April 7. There have been eight auctions so far this year, with two consecutive increases recorded in January.