Fonterra reduces milk collection forecast

Challenging pasture growing conditions have prompted Fonterra to revise its forecast milk collections to 1.5 billion kilograms of milk solids (kgMS) for the year to May 31, a reduction of 25 million kgMS on its opening forecast. Fonterra chief executive Miles Hurrell said varied weather and challenging growing conditions across much of the country earlier in the season resulted in milk collections down on the same time last year. ‘‘We were expecting conditions to improve over the Christmas-New Year period, but this has not eventuated,’’ Hurrell said. The revised forecast represented a 1.6 per cent reduction in kgMS collected. Hurrell said at this stage no change was needed to the volume of product Fonterra was offering on the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) platform. Due to the high demand for off-GDT sales, it had already reduced the volume it was offering on the platform earlier in the season. ‘‘We will continue to monitor the situation and carefully manage our sales both on and off-GDT.’’