Cane
Cane mills in center-south Brazil are back, churning out sugar in early July, after wet conditions in June slowed crushing of the record crop that is source to half the world’s exports of the sweetener, local industry association Unica said on Wednesday.
Brazil’s main cane region produced 2.4 million tonnes of sugar in the first half of July, up 60 percent from the 1.5 million produced in the second half of June. Sugar output in the first half of July was not fully up to speed yet, with mills’ sugar output still lagging 9 percent behind the 2.63 million tonnes produced in the same fortnight a year ago.
Dairy Products
Westpac has upgraded its prediction of the forecast milk price for this season to $7.40 a kilogram of milk solids. It expects Fonterra to do the same or to go even higher. Westpac said a combination of a weaker Kiwi dollar and persistently strong global prices had prompted the upgrade.
New Zealand’s Fonterra – the world’s largest dairy producer – will cut the price of one of it milk formula products in China, joining a growing list of firms responding to Beijing’s investigation into the sector.
Auckland-based Fonterra said it will reduce prices by up to 9 percent for its Anmum brand of maternal milk products from Aug. 1. The move comes as the company prepares to enter China’s booming branded infant milk formula market later this year. A number of international milk powder producers have cut prices in China after the country’s top economic planning agency said earlier this month it was investigating possible price-fixing and anti-competitive behavior.