The Chinese Coronavirus is hitting World Dairy Trade

There are no signs the Coronavirus has turned the corner with Tuesday 18th February recording 72,440 cases confirmed in China resulting in 1870 deaths and rising daily. Today, six days later, the number of cases in China has risen to 77,345 (+ 4,905) and 2593 deaths (+ 723).

The spread is exerting serious pressure on world dairy prices and despite Tuesdays GDT result analysts anticipate pressure will come on cheese prices given the Chinese food service industry has seen numbers of Chinese consumers eating out collapse.

In addition, there are reports that internal movement of refrigerated goods in China is slow as well as slow port unloading of refrigerated containers carrying imported dairy products.

Food chains including KFC and Pizza Hut have already closed down more than 30% of their Chinese outlets with total sales reported as down by 50% plus. 

Everyone is watching the figures hoping soon they will head South and that the virus will be short-lived but at the moment that’s certainly not the case.