Cash cheese held steady, butter gained a quarter-cent and nonfat dry milk lost a nickel on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on Thursday. Class III futures slipped a little in a rather quiet session.
National Dairy Products Sales Report for the week ending February 14: cash cheese blocks averaged $1.53 down 1.2 cents from the previous week. Barrels were 0.7 cents lower at $1.53, butter increased 6.8 cents to average $1.70 per pound. Nonfat dry milk increased 0.4 cents to $1.02 and dry whey slipped 3.3 cents to 52.7 cents per pound.
The Base Class I Price for March is $15.56 per hundredweight down 68 cents from the previous month. Base Skim Milk Price for Class I for March is $9.59 down $1.17. The Class I Base has lost $3 since January and $8.63 since October.
Dairy cow slaughter totaled 275,000 in January, 18,000 more than went to market in December and 5,000 more than slaughtered under federal inspection in January of 2014.
