Bega Cheese and Saputo Dairy Australia-Warrnambool Cheese and Butter have announced milk price increases.
Saputo-WCB announced on Thursday it was stepping up its farmgate milk price by seven cents/kilogram for butterfat and 14c/kg for protein, lifting the amount it would pay farmers to $6.05c kilogram/MS.
The payment will be made with January 2019 proceeds, during February 2019
That’s up from $5.95c kg/MS.
“This payment is retrospective and applies to all qualifying milk supplied by current WCB and SDA suppliers from 1 July 1, 2018,” a Saputo Dairy Australia spokesman said.
Saputo also lifted its price in its NSW–Sydney market region by
8 cents/kg butterfat and 12 cents/kg protein.
This increases the average farmgate milk price for the 2018/19 season suppliers in the NSW–Sydney Market Region to 52.7 cents per litre, up from 52 cents per litre.
The Saputo spokesman said while world markets had seen some improvement recently due mainly to easing growth in milk production and a reduction in skim milk powder stockpiles in the European Union, prices declined across dairy commodities during the first half.
“As such, this price increase reflects our acknowledgement that farm conditions remain challenging for our suppliers and any sustained market recovery is still ahead.”
“We will continue to monitor the market and review the milk price again in April 2019, in accordance with our quarterly review process.”
Bega announced on Wednesday a milk price increase of 14c/kg milk solids.
Executive chairman Barry Irvin said the increase would equate to farmers receiving an additional $0.096c/kg for butterfat and $0.192c/kg for protein, as a loyalty payment from July 1 last year.
It would be applied as an increase for milk supplied from February 1 to June 30, this year.
Source: The Australian Dairyfarmer
