Making holiday cookies and other treats will likely cost more this season thanks to strong butter and sugar prices.
Tight supplies of both commodities are pushing prices higher going into the fourth quarter, but the higher prices aren’t necessarily good news for either dairy producers or sugar beet growers.
The nearby U.S. domestic sugar futures contract closed Monday at 39 cents per pound, a record high. That’s nearly double what the November 2010 contract started trading at nearly two years ago. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. average retail sugar price in August was 60.4 cents per lb. up from 55.6 cents a year ago.
Butter prices are soaring even faster. U.S. consumers paid an average of $3.242 per lb. for butter in August, up from $3.115 in July and $2.774 a year ago. Butter futures prices had risen by nearly a penny every trading session since late May before finally falling back slightly at the end of last week. The October cash settled butter price closed at $2.15 per lb. on Monday.
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