The Global Dairy Trade (GDT) price index has recorded a slight increase of 0.5% following the latest trading event held today (Tuesday, February 20).

This is the sixth consecutive increase and the index now stands at 1,112. The index jumped by over 4% after the previous auction held a fortnight ago.

A total of 24,306MT was sold at today’s event achieving an average price of $3,664/MT.

Anhydrous milk fat, butter, cheddar, lactose, mozzarella, skim milk powder (SMP), and whole milk powder (WMP) were all offered at the auction, with a mixed picture in terms of average prices achieved.

Butter milk powder (BMP) did not feature at the trading event.

Anhydrous milk fat posted the most significant increase in average price of 8.6% to $6,552/MT, while mozzarella rose by 5.3% to $3,960/MT and SMP was up 1.3% to $2,788/MT.

After a 10% increase in average price at the previous event, butter saw a marginal gain of 0.1% this time out to stand at $6,526/MT.

On the other hand, there was a sharp drop in the average price of cheddar which was down 7.6% to $4,143/MT.

WMP dropped by 1.8% to $3,388/MT and the average price of lactose was back by 1% to $785/MT.

The 350th GDT event saw a total of 101 winning bidders out of a total of 155 participants.

There were 16 bidding rounds which took two hours and twenty minutes to complete.