Prices, peak milk, and a candidate with different skills and direction.

After a slow start peak milk flowed this week to create a single day record in NZ.

Prices were described as steady in the fortnightly auction with some commodities falling and some rising.

Fonterra board hopeful proclaimed his case by selling his marketing expertise and opposition to the boards dairy expansion into China.

Are you happy with the performance of Fonterra's added value, and their expansion into dairy farms in China?

Plenty of milk now flowing after a slow start.

Dairy giant Fonterra has set a new record for the most milk processed in a single day, it announced today. Commonly known as the peak day, the record was last Wednesday, when the the co-operative processed 76.8 million litres of milk across its 26 sites. This was up three million litres on the previous record set last year reports The NZ Herald.

Fonterra trade and operations managing director Gary Romano attributed the rise in production to more settled weather across the country. "It was a slow start to the season with wet weather in the Waikato and Taranaki and snow in the South Island. However, this recent spell of fine weather has seen a sharp increase in production on-farm." Rough weather at the start of the season, combined with a recent lift in milk production, meant Fonterra was late in picking up milk from some of its farmers.

And this weeks auction prices.

Dairy commodity prices were little changed at Fonterra's overnight online auction, with the globalDairyTrade trade weighted index showing no movement, while the average winning price edged up to US$3542 ($4816) from US$3506 a fortnight ago.

For anhydrous milk fat, the average price rose 4.5 per cent overnight to US$5394, butter milk powder was down 1.8 per cent to US$3011, skim milk powder fell 1.1 per cent to US$3021, and whole milk powder edged up to US$3495.

New candidate presses hard for election.

A Fonterra board hopeful says there is a ''gaping hole'' in the skills of the dairy giant's director line-up -  no experienced brand marketers. Russ Rimmington, a Waikato dairy farmer, former Hamilton mayor and former advertising and marketing agency owner, told a director election roadshow travelling the country this week that the dairy industry had an ''abysmal''  track record in some types of business investments, which demonstrated the absence of marketing skills among directors reports Stuff.

Rimmington, 64, is one of two farmers challenging three incumbent directors on the board of New Zealand's biggest company. The other challenger is Southland farmer  Maurice Hardie, 49.  The incumbents seeking re-election are chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden, ex-banker Ian Farrelly and former economist and Federated Farmers leader Malcolm Bailey.