This paper looks at the boom period between 2000 and 2008 in the international prices of four internationally-traded commodities: oil, dairy products, beef and lamb. All are important drivers of macroeconomic dynamics in New Zealand. Our aim is to provide overviews of the demand and supply factors specific to each market and product, thus adding colour to more general analyses of the macroeconomic and financial drivers of the cycles in world commodity markets over the period. For each commodity market we examine here, we set out the structures of the markets and the major drivers of world demand and supply, and discuss the apparent relative strength of each of the drivers.