From the parlor pit 1-10

[jrsiajdranch]

Wow what a week it was with price surges to new all time January highs in many of the months for class 3 and the highest butter run up in a week since Nov, of 2000.  Many proccesors are concerened that with butter at $2.10 a pound conmsumers will back off purchases.  Well there is a problem with that thinking this run up is due to supply not demand. We have a shortage of butter!  I think that for most of the past year proccesors were putting milk into cheese inventories trying desperatly to keep milk prices low. Deans and Kraft both had terrible years financially last year and were trying desperatly to use the board to keep their costs low. THis wasn't a conspiracy or anything it was just endusers using there stick to move the market.  However they did it by shorting the butter supply. The world has also been short of butter fat all the way around. India has begun in earnest to source butter hence the big run up in the Fonterra auction price last week.

At the sane time the worlds largest exporter NZ. has been having terrible weather problems.  And now the west coast of America is also.  These are having dramatic impact on the supply.

Does this mean the golden age of dairy is ahead?  Well no Feed and energy prices are still historically high so this run up will not fuel expansion. But at least it is good news in the parlor pit. Be safe. JR

[k-289]

jr---what the heck is "INDUSTRIAL FAT"---another "BOTTOM LINE move for feed ingredients folks or what ?

[JRfrom OR]

JR

I'm glad to hear the outlook for the price of milk is improving for you guys, I can afford to pay more for milk. 

There should be more value placed on food in America rather than the "eat till you're stuffed and throw away the rest mentality.  It's a shame the way we're burning through our resources to keeo the population fat  AND able to still discard nearly half of everything we grow.  Those times are going to come to an end someday.

[k-289]

The INDUSTRIAL FAT is the new dioxin crisis in Germany---news said it derived from INDUSTRIAL FAT additives in feed--anyone have the skinny on this one ? 

[jrsiajdranch]

K good afternoon.  I came across this article today and thought it did abetter job of answering your question.

Dioxin-contaminated liquid egg distributed in UK

Post a commentBy Rory Harrington, 07-Jan-2011

Related topics: Regulation & Safety

Eggs from farms affected by dioxin-contaminated feed have been and mixed with products to be used in processed foods and exported into the UK, food safety officials said yesterday.

The European Commission confirmed that a number of the 136,000 eggs originally sold into the Netherlands from German farms involved in the contamination have been used to make liquid pasteurised egg distributed in the UK.

Frederic Vincent, EC health spokesman, said a14.5 tonne-consignment of the liquid egg had been shipped into the UK, although it was currently unknown the number of products affected.

Liquid egg is typically used in a host of bakery products such as pastries and sponge cakes, as well as in mayonnaise and ice-cream.

“The mixing of the eggs will have diluted the levels of dioxins and they are not thought to be a risk to health”, the UK Food Standards Agency said as it confirmed it was talking to industry players to assess the full fallout from the situation.

Farm closures

The news came as German authorities announced that more than 4,700 farms in the country had now been closed as a result of the contamination scandal that came to light at the end of last month. Most of the affected pig and poultry farms are in Lower Saxony region, in north-west Germany.

The incident, which is the most serious in the EU for a number of years, began when fatty acids meant to be used for technical purposes such as paper processing, were incorrectly mixed with vegetable feed fat. These fatty acids were contaminated with dioxins which were than used in the production of the animal feed. The original source of the dioxin tainting remains unknown.

The contaminated feed was distributed to farms in several areas of Germany. As hens consumed the contaminated compound feed, higher levels of dioxins than those permitted by EU law were found in poultry meat and eggs. Authorities believe that up to 3,000 tones of contaminated feed could have been sold.

While authorities have stressed there is no immediate threat to human health. Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have the potential to cause damage to the immune and reproductive systems if they are absorbed into our bodies at high levels for long periods.

I think this was purely an accident which differs greatly from the food scare in China 2 yeasr ago when the added Melanine to boost the protien content of dairy products.  The fatty acids were to be used in a paper milling process.