Rising Quotes and Diving Demand

Yesterday was—yet again—an eventful day in dairy land, with solid activity across butter and powders. But if you're hoping for drama on cheese… keep hoping. On powders, we saw a very tight price band—between €2375 and €2400—across roughly 300mt. Butter followed suit, trading between €7275 and €7325 across a wide timeframe from April to September. That’s impressively narrow for a market that’s supposedly “volatile.” Only Polish butter dipped lower, trading down to €7200. And cheese? Let’s not talk about cheese. No trades, wide bid-offer spreads, and neither buyers nor sellers seem remotely stressed. As usual, they’re waiting for butter to show them the way.

Dull Market? Think Again.

You could be forgiven for thinking this market is dull. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll see it’s anything but. Cream started the day with a full-blown identity crisis—prices in the Baltics dropped as low as €8300, Poland saw delivered levels of €8500, and Benelux was at €8600 FCA. But then, surprise: the second half of the day saw prices pop back up, with Western EU even hitting €8850 again. In short: cream is all over the place. Depending on who you talk to, prices could fall €200 by the weekend... or rise €200. Great.

Raw Milk & SMC: Mixed Signals

Raw milk prices are getting weird. In France, milk is suddenly flowing like it’s spring break—prices even dropped below 45ct. Germany is just below 50ct, while Benelux is just above. SMC remains the budget-friendly choice, trading well below €2000. Some are reporting as low as €1750, with offers up to €1900. Bargain hunters, take note.

Meanwhile, a 4th case of FMD disease was reported in Slovakia, moving the spread again a bit more north. So far the market doesn't seem worried, yet we keep following the news with a knot in our stomage.

Quotations Quarrel 🥊

While cream softened and butter offers multiplied, EEX futures didn’t hold up either. That should’ve made the tone clear, right? Well, apparently not. Despite bearish vibes everywhere, yesterday’s butter quotations threw the market a curveball:

• The Dutch quotation dropped €30 to €7500
• Germany stuck at €7525
• France, ever the contrarian, pushed up to €7830 (!)

So yes, the average EEX price for end of March landed at €7618. That’s quite the leap from the €7275–€7325 range we’re actually seeing. If you’re wondering how that helps anyone trying to hedge or settle contracts—spoiler—it doesn’t. We hear whispers that a new, more sane alternative to the EEX might be coming soon. Fingers crossed it comes with fewer debates and better coffee.

Butter: Finding Some Support (Sort Of)

The butter market found some footing—especially in April, where stocks are still thin and buyers are willing to pay a premium. But blink and that support fades. Offers for late April collection already trigger softer bids.

Here’s what we’re seeing:

• Q2: Buyers still pay €7300 for NL/DE/BE and €7250 for Irish (Apr/May).
• Polish: Expect offers between €7200–€7250.
• If cream softens again, those sharper Polish butter prices will likely drag Irish—and eventually Dutch/German—down with them.

The Q3/Q4 market is another story. Futures are jumping around—down to €7200 one day, then up €150 the next. On the physical side, buyers show interest just below €7300 for NL/DE/BE and €7200 for Irish, but they vanish the second futures blink.

We got asked the question so many times again this week. So what changed? What has turned a clearly bullish market back to bearish? The answer? Not much. Really. Milk volumes are a bit higher thanks to good weather. But if we rewind to January’s forecast, the following things were always on the cards the bears were holding:

• Overproduction in Q2
• A backwardation market
• Weak exports
• Lukewarm demand
• Third-country imports

Expedited Result? Lower spot prices and bearish momentum.

As one market friend put it:
"We might’ve been wrong on the timing… but not on the direction."

We can offer

• 6 loads of Northern Irish butter, FCA N-Ireland at € 7300 May - June
• 6 loads of Irish butter, FCA Ireland for Q3 at € 7275
• 6 loads of Polish butter, FCA Poland, Sweet Cream FCA PL € 7250for Q2
• 6 loads of NL/DE/BE butter for Q3 at € 7375

We expect to have bids for

• 6 loads of NL/DE/BE butter for April at € 7350
• 6 loads of Irish butter for April at € 7300
• 6 loads of Irish butter for Q3 at € 7200
• 6 loads of NL/DE/BE butter for May-June-July at € 7200
• 3 loads of Polish Sweet Cream for April at €7100

Powders and Cheeses

Not much fresh to report on powders or cheese today.

Cheese remains the slow kid in the class—bid-ask spreads are still wide, and no one’s in a rush. But give it a few more days and we wouldn’t be surprised to see offers start to come down more sharply. In fact, we’d go as far as to say we’re more bearish than the market seems to admit right now. Consider this your gentle heads-up.

Powders are playing the same tune as yesterday. We managed to close a bit more Q2 volume again, all within the familiar €2375–€2400 range. Buyers aren’t keen to chase prices up, sellers don’t feel like dropping lower, and everyone else is just watching.

But those who do want to trade know what to do: talk to Linda. She’s connecting both sides at fair market levels and making deals happen inside that €2375–€2400 band. So if you’re serious about filling orders, you know who to call.