Fonterra CEO Says Whole Milk Prices Too High, Need to Decline
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Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Theo Spierings said milk powder prices are too high and risk hurting the dairy industry unless they normalize.
“The distance between whole milk powder and the other milk products is too big,” Spierings said in an interview in Auckland today after Fonterra, the world’s largest dairy exporter, reported a 3 percent drop in earnings for the 2012-13 year. Higher prices not only push customers toward other milk products, they also make substitutes such as soy or vegetable oil more attractive, he said.