CME Group expands dairy business with new European options

USA – CME Group has announced plans to launch new European dairy futures and options contracts before the end of 2026, pending all regulatory reviews.

The company will introduce new futures and options contracts for European Skimmed Milk Powder, European Butter, European Whey Powder and European Liquid Milk.

These products will position CME Group to expand on recent record activity within the Dairy complex, including reaching record monthly open interest of an average 420,922 contracts a day in September, a 42% increase year over year, and an all-time daily open interest record of 461,493 contracts on September 29.

“We’ve long served the dairy community across the U.S., and now we’re bringing that same commitment to Europe,” said John Ricci, Global Head of Agricultural Products at CME Group.

“By offering futures and options, we’re giving participants a more complete toolkit to deploy capital efficiently and manage regional price risk – all on a single platform alongside our U.S. complex.”

The new contracts will be financially settled and will initially track EEX indices before transitioning to CME Group indices. They will be listed on and subject to the rules of CME.

CME Group and EEX are also working to transition the EEX Weekly European Cheese Indices and the Pan European Butter Index to CME Group for continued benefit to the industry.

The company announced an agreement for EEX to transition its European dairy business to CME Group, already home to the dairy risk management industry in the USA.

Under the terms of the agreement, EEX intends to phase out its dairy business and support the transition of its suite of indices underpinning existing futures contracts to CME Group before the end of 2027.

The transaction, which includes the European butter and skimmed milk powder indices, will mark CME Group’s entry into the European dairy market, with plans to launch its own European dairy indices, futures and options in the near future.

Dairy futures trading at EEX will remain available for the respective listed maturities, and there won’t be any immediate changes to the setup of the pan-European butter and WECI indices.

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