At Tuesday’s Global Dairy Trade auction, SMP prices rose 3.1% to their highest level since June 2022, and whole milk powder jumped 5.9% to its highest since August 2025. Butter fell another 4.7% and AMF lost 3.2%, both below what futures had priced in. Two weeks ago European butter looked to have found a bottom, but selling pressure is back.
On the skim side, the problem is supply. Skim goes into fresh products, MPC, liquids and niche proteins before it ever reaches a dryer, so less SMP is made even with plenty of milk. Most buyers have covered their direct needs but still have plenty to buy for next year, and traders are the only ones holding stock. North Asian buyers stocked up before Chinese New Year, Fonterra offered less WMP, and Algeria’s ONIL bought around 20,000 tonnes from New Zealand.
Butter has the opposite problem. Butter stocks are high in every main exporting region, and US stocks were 16.5% above a year earlier in September, the biggest increase since May 2023. Cheaper butter is not bringing shoppers back: German consumers bought about 1% less at retail even though the price has fallen 35% year on year. With CME butter close to its October lows, US butter is by far the cheapest in the world and now competes with New Zealand in its own export markets.
The analysis sees no bottom for butter yet and expects SMP to keep rising.
Read the full butter, SMP and WMP market analysis here.
