2024-09-21 08:00:25
LButter is golden on the edge. Let’s ignore the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter of churned milk cream. It has never been so popular and is soaring on the markets. Like gold, which crossed the historic threshold of $2,600 (€2,330) per ounce on Friday, September 20, butter is breaking records. The precious commodity is trading at the end of this summer at nearly €8,000 per ton. Unprecedented. Butter and the gold of butter.
We remember that seven years ago, in the fall of 2017, the French rushed to the sparse shelves of supermarkets, and the media were bidding on the shortage of buttered wafers. This moment of media panic coincided with a price of butter close to 7,000 euros per ton, a level considered, at the time, stratospheric. For the moment, while this peak is in the rearview mirror, no one has sounded the alarm. The manufacturers of pains au chocolat, croissants and other pastries are not out of the woods. They are not yet in dire straits.
To explain this surge, Benoît Rouyer, economist at the National Interprofessional Center for the Dairy Economy (Cniel), mentions “the decline in production in two of the three major global dairy basins, namely the United States and New Zealand”even though consumption is holding: “In the United States, the decline is linked to unfavourable climatic conditions, while in New Zealand, agro-environmental pressure is leading to stagnation, or even a drop in production.” Even though the flow rate of the udders in Europe remains positive, the overall market trend is slightly in deficit.
Auspicious
Or, “As soon as there is an imbalance, there is a runaway effect”notes Mr. Rouyer. Speculation is causing prices to soar. “Since the fall of 2023, the price of industrial butter has jumped by 50%”he says. No one knows when this somersault will be passed on to the consumer. It is true that, in stores, butter and cream have already seen their prices jump by 30% in three years and that the drops in the prices of these raw materials have never been transferred to the prices displayed.
For French dairy farmers, this valuation bodes well for negotiating the price of milk for 2025. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, a tonne of conventional milk sold for an average of 460 euros over the first seven months of the year, down 3% over the year. The idea is to get things moving again. “We are asking for a rate at least equal to our production costs, estimated by the sector at 485 euros per tonne.underlines Yohann Barbe, president of the National Federation of Milk Producers. French milk production has gone from 24 to 23 billion litres of milk. We must recover the lost billion.”
You have 8.81% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
1726946842
#Butter #gold #butter
