Butter prices in the Netherlands sit 26% below last year

Butter prices in the Netherlands are more than a quarter lower than a year ago. On Wednesday 11 November, ZuivelNL quoted fresh butter at €375 per 100 kilos, ex-factory and excluding VAT, against €510 in the same week of 2025.

That is €135 less, or just over 26 per cent. Per kilo, butter now costs €3.75 at factory level, compared with €5.10 a year earlier. The quotation held steady this week after rising by €3 on 4 November. At the time, farming weekly Nieuwe Oogst described that as a slight recovery, with butter still more than a quarter below last year's level.

What low butter prices mean for your kitchen

Butter now costs the same as skimmed milk powder, and a quarter less than last year.

For bakeries, pastry chefs and restaurants that work with a lot of butter, the low quotation lands in a busy period. December is the month of Dutch butter letters, Christmas stollen and almond-filled banketstaven, and kitchens also get through more butter during the holiday weeks. Anyone with brown butter on the menu, as in our celeriac steak with brown butter and hazelnuts, is now working from a cheaper base than last year.

A caveat: the ZuivelNL quotation is not a wholesale price. What appears on your invoice is higher and depends on your supplier and your terms. But the quotation, set every Wednesday, is the reference point when you negotiate purchasing deals or recalculate the cost of a dish.

The drop also showed up on supermarket shelves. Dutch price comparison site Allesupers measured a fall of around 17 per cent in the shelf price of butter between January and June 2026, at all six supermarkets for which it had enough data. The site links this to the European butter quotation, which fell by about a third from late 2025, but explicitly does not claim to establish the cause.

Milk powder climbs while butter stays cheap

The rest of the dairy market is moving the other way. Skimmed milk powder for human consumption rose by €4 this week to €375 per 100 kilos, exactly the same as butter. A year ago the same powder cost €202, so it is up almost 86 per cent. Whole milk powder stands at €384, just €9 above skimmed.

Nieuwe Oogst calls that narrow gap exceptional. Last year, butter was still €308 above skimmed milk powder. According to the paper, analysts expect skimmed milk powder may soon overtake whole milk powder in price, which would be a first. Dairy has eased globally too: the FAO Food Price Index fell in October, partly on cheaper dairy.

The next quotation is due on Wednesday 18 November. Anyone buying for December will then see whether the slight recovery of early November continues, or whether butter prices stay stuck at this low level.