Greg's Milk Monitor 15 May 2025: Winners and losers

Both skim and whey are unchanged this week, as the not inconsiderable equal and opposing forces of supply and demand hold the market steady.

Whilst the picture shows who’s winning the battle for sweet whey supply, the feed industry is certainly the loser. The fact that WPC was developed to be a cheap protein alternative to expensive skim milk is now history, as WPC 35 has now surpassed skim by over €700, with supply still painfully scarce. The main reason is that processors are filling their towers with orders for WPC 80, and no wonder, as that little 500g packet above is retailing for £16. B2B prices have topped €15/kg in bulk, and this is starving WPC 35 and more so, the supply of feed grade for a humble €840.

This headlong rush into super-concentrated whey may of course end up in tears, as the edible market could end up in oversupply as it did with infant milk formula, so the pipeline for feed grade whey could become much easier. But hopes for deep discounting are pretty dim, given the price of liquid milk and the downturn in cheese production.

Feed grade skim milk is still a ridiculous €40 premium to edible grade, which is strange, given the decline in CMR demand and also a hike in the edible price of €20 this week.

Apart from the dearth of WPC35, the only other current headache for the milk powder blender is lactose, which is odd, as it used to be cheap as chips and easily available, but is now a premium to whey and with fewer processors in the market, and poor edible demand, stocks have disappeared.

In other markets, crude oil dipped into the high $50s last week, but the oil barons’ ball that is going on in the Middle East this week seems to have put a bit of backbone back into OPEC. Having said that, the House of Representatives is signing off a biofuel mandate that last until 2031, which put wind back in the sails of soy oil, shooting it back up into the low 50 cents range, but the reality of the huge South American crop has pulled it down into the high 40s again.

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

For further information and prices, contact Greg Dunn on 01206 598657 or greg@bdc-agri.com