Another week of gently lifting powder markets, whey up 2.5% at €820 and skim only €10 higher. Talk amongst the milk powder community in this week’s VIV MEA in Abu Dhabi reckons the Dutch and Eastern European sweet whey markets are something like €50 over the French or Irish prices. Availability is generally easy, which doesn’t usually signal a bull run, but trader manipulation shouldn’t be ruled out.

Speaking of which, there’s some producer manipulation seemingly going on in the fat filled whey market. The largest free market processor (not for in-house consumption) has hiked that market €150 higher and is starting to withhold material, which is unsurprising given how far beneath the skim milk market that fat filled has been trading all summer. It is usually about parity with skim, but has been at €300-400 discount, which is now rapidly narrowing.

Nothing much going on in soya, Brazil is behind on planting in arid soils, and China bought a record 4 million tonnes of US beans in a week, but the general feeling seems to be that when it does rain in Brazil, the complex will ease accordingly, given the record acreage. Palm oil has had a rally this month, but is coming off the boil as the Chinese soya oil market in Dalian is down, and India is scaling back palm purchases in December and January.

BDC agri is the UK broker for Lacto Production milk and whey powder products.

For further information and prices, contact Greg Dunn on 01206 381521 or g.dunn@blackdiamondcommodities.com