As the Thanksgiving holiday rolled around, the dairy market continued its downward spiral. Class III milk experienced substantial losses as the short trading week around the holidays closed. Class III milk prices in November increased by a penny to $21.04 but dropped by 69 cents in December to $20.31/cwt. The following month was January when prices dropped by 38 cents to $20.06. The remaining months in 2023 had decreases of 5-18 cents. Similarly, the production of Class IV milk faced difficulties. During the month of November, prices stayed stable at $23.35, while in December they dropped to $21.32 and during the month of January they dropped by 12 cents, to $20.78.
There was a lack of consistency in spot trade on the CME. Dry whey pricing has been stable at $0.44 for almost a week now. Unfortunately, there were no reported sales. At $2.15, cheese blocks were $0.05 cheaper than they had been. No transactions were recorded. Barrels of cheese increased by $0.0125, to $1.8175. There were no reported sales. After an additional $0.0175 gain, the price of butter settled at $2.9475. There were six transactions ranging from $2.92 to $2.9575. At $1.3975, the nonfat dry milk price was down $0.02. A total of four transactions were registered between $1.39 and $1.40.
