The Global Dairy Trade (GDT) price index rose by 2.3% to 1,025 at the final trading event of 2023 today (Tuesday, December 19).

A total 27,379MT was sold today at the 346th trading event which attracted 156 participating bidders – this was down on the last trading event when 29,559MTof product was sold.

The average price today was $3,388 based on a conversion rate of €0.9159 per US$1.

At the event the core dairy ingredients traded included anhydrous milk fat, butter, cheddar, lactose, skim milk powder (SMP), and whole milk powder (WMP).

The twice monthly trading event is one of the leading global auctions for trading large volume dairy ingredients.

GDT

The biggest jump in the price indices this time around was for butter which increased by 9.9% to an average price of US$5,458/MT at the event which lasted just over two and a half hours.

Source: GDT

Also showing a strong jump in the price indices was cheddar – which had enjoyed a strong performance at the last GDT event earlier this month.

The price index of cheddar jumped by 6.9% to an average price of US$4,265/M during the event which this time included 20 bidding rounds.

There was a less buoyant performance from whole milk powder (WMP) which increased by 2.9% to an average price of US$3,207/MT.

Meanwhile the price index of anhydrous milk fat (AMF) increased by just 0.2% to an average price of US$5,578/MT.

Source: GDT

But it was a disappointing event for both mozzarella and skim milk powder which both fell back in the price indices.

The mozzarella (MOZZ) index slipped down by 1.1% to an average price of US$3,960/MT but skim milk powder (SMP) fell back the most by 1.3% at the latest event to hit an average price index of US$2,620/MT.

The price index of lactose failed to show any movement and remained at $793/MT while there was no price index available for  butter milk powder.