Global Dairy Trade (GDT) has announced that it is extending its GDT Pulse pilot project involving smaller single product auctions.

Since its joint launch by GDT and Fonterra almost a year ago, the pilot version sought to expand GDT’s service offering for buyers and sellers by facilitating more frequent price discovery.

GDT is also considering offering more auctions and broadening the scope of the platform by inviting other sellers to offer their products, promoting increased diversity and expanding market opportunities for buyers.

GDT Pulse

GDT Pulse offers Fonterra’s Whole Milk Powder (WMP) regular contract period 2 for auction in weeks when GDT trading events are not held.

It offers a streamlined auction process with a total duration of approximately 10-20 minutes.

Customer feedback gathered after six months of operation indicated strong support for further reducing the bidding round duration from two minutes to one minute.

This adjustment aimed to optimise the auction experience and enhance efficiency for participants.

To date, 26 auctions have been conducted on the pilot platform, with 25,427MT of product sold, amounting to a cumulative value of almost $83 million.

The average clearance rate for the products offered on GDT Pulse stands at 97.8%.

New Zealand

The auctions have typically consisted of an average of eight bidding rounds, with a total auction duration averaging 17 minutes.

On average, each auction has attracted the participation of 30 bidders, out of which an average of 15 have emerged as winning bidders.

Building on the results of the pilot phase, GDT now plans to extend the trial of GDT Pulse for an additional 12 months.

This extended pilot phase will focus requests from bidders for expanded offerings and features.

“This expansion is expected to attract more participants and further enhance market liquidity,” GDT said.