Dairy Markets Week in Review
The cash dairy markets continue to garner a lot of attention, particularly butter. The 40-pound block cheese price closed the first Friday of December at $1.79 per pound, down 1 1/4-cents on the week, and 40 1/4-cents below that week a year ago. The 500-pound barrel price closed at $1.7475, down 4 1/4-cents on the week, and 41 1/4-cents below a year ago. 11 cars of block traded hands on the week and six of barrel. The lagging NASS U.S. average block price, inched up 2 cents, to $1.6927. Barrel averaged $1.7393, up 4.1 cents.
Cash butter closed Friday at $1.2575 per pound, down a whopping 24 1/4-cents on the week, and 7 1/4-cents below a year ago. Buyers sat on their hands until Friday, when one car traded. NASS butter averaged $1.5379, down 5.2 cents. NASS nonfat dry milk averaged 87.34 cents per pound, up 2.2 cents, and dry whey averaged 18.61 cents, down 0.5 cent.
Price support purchases for the week totaled 12 million pounds of nonfat dry milk and raised the year’s cumulative total to 85.4 million pounds.
Provided courtesy of Dairyline.