USA: Volatility to remain ‘a persistent force’ in dairy despite likely ‘slow but steady’ increase in prices

While the bank’s outlook analysis suggested that farmer margins would improve in most regions as the year progresses, in China, the expectation is for raw milk price to likely stay low, said Michelle Huang, Shanghai dairy analyst for Rabobank. She also clarified that China’s National Food Safety standard on liquid milk is unlikely to influence this year’s trade, specifically whole milk powder imports. “The standard is still under public review and has not been implemented yet,” she said. “Considering the time [required to implement it], the new standard on 2024 WMP imports should not be a key influencing factor. “In the meantime, top two players like Yili and Mengniu, who hold 87% of the UHT value share, have already used domestically sourced raw milk to produce UHT white milk. Once the new standard is implemented, this should only have an impact on smaller players (less than 20% UTH share) that used to import WMP and use reconstituted milk in UHT.” The report also highlighted ...