The Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index has seen a slight recovery after the latest trading event today (Tuesday, July 21).

This marks the first increase in the index - which is updated every second Tuesday - after three decreases in a row.

The index has increased by 1.5%, reflecting an average price for product sold during the trading event of €3,339/t.

The index figure now stands at 1,139, slightly up from 1,121 at the last trading event.

Over the last 12 GDT trading events, including today's, going back to February 3, the picture is quite an up-and-down one; in those 12 events the index increased seven times and decreased five times, although four of the seven increases were took place consecutively between February 3 and March 17.

In today's event, a total of 26,889t of product was sold, and 167 bidders took part.

117 winning bidders emerged across 17 bidding rounds, which lasted a total of two hours and 46 minutes.

Products

Looking at the individual product sub-indices, the big performer of the day was butter milk powder, the index for which increased by 10.5%, reflecting an average price of €4,146/t.

Other products saw smaller increases, the highest of which was a 2.8% increase for skim milk powder, for a price of €2,830/t.

The lactose index increased by 2%, for a price of €1,506/t.

There were also increase for whole milk powder (up 1.6% for a price of €3,051/t); mozzarella (up 1.3% for a price of €3,448/t); and anhydrous milk fat (up 1.1% for a price of €5,606/t).

On the flip side, cheddar struggled, seeing a decrease in index of 6.5%, for a price of €3,138/t.

Butter saw a more marginal decrease, decreasing by 0.6% for a price of €4,641/t.

Milk prices

The latest GDT results come as Irish dairy processors continue to announce their milk prices for farmer suppliers for June milk.

Most recently, today, Carbery Group confirmed that it has maintained the June price from the previous month.

Carbery said that if that decision is replicated across the four west Cork co-ops of Bandon, Barryroe, Drinagh and Lisavaird, this will result in an average milk price of 40.8cpl, inclusive of VAT, the 0.5c/L somatic cell count (SCC) bonus and the FutureProof sustainability bonus.