Last week’s first NZ Global Dairy Trade event of 2015 displayed a level positive commodity price increases with the average index up 3.6% from $2,609 to $2,709/tonne.

While this was coming from a low base, and on relatively low volumes, the rise in this key futures market is a very welcome price signal as Europe shifts towards peak.

It must be said that the big mover was butter with a rise of over 13%, while gains in the key commodity areas of WMP and SMP were much more modest coming from very low bases, so we must not get ahead of ourselves as the Chinese buyers are yet to come back to the market.