The average winning price across the auction was US$2283 a tonne.
Prices for the all-important whole milk powder firmed by 3.0 per cent to US$2252 a tonne while the another key product for New Zealand producers – skim milk powder – dropped by 0.9 per cent to US$1658 a tonne.
Elsewhere, anhydrous milk fat prices gained 4.9 per cent to US$3340 a tonne while butter gained 3.8 per cent to US$2697 a tonne. Butter milk powder shot up by 16.2 per cent to an average US$1545/tonne.
Fonterra’s farmgate milk price forecast for the current season, which ends on May 31, is $3.90 a kg of milksolids compared with Dairy NZ’s estimate of breakeven of $5.25 a kg.
The co-operative will later this month issue its forecast for 2016/7 and analysts are picking a milk price of around $4.50 a kg.
Volumes at this morning’s auction were very light.
«It was not a terrible result but it was not a terribly good one either,» Jon Spainhour , a broker and partner at Chicago-based dairy specialist Rice Dairy, said.
«There is momentum but we are still treading around the bottom, particularly for skim milk powder,» he said.
Source: NZ Herald