The EU’s private storage aid scheme subsidises operators to keep products off the market during a period of excessive supply. It was widely used in the pig and dairy crisis of the past two years. The companies paid to store the commodities are not necessarily the ones offering products into the scheme.

In 2016, six dairy companies shared €1.4m to store Irish dairy products. Ireland was the EU’s second largest user of the scheme for butter after the Netherlands, with a peak of 11,702t in private storage aid last September. Irish stocks of skimmed milk powder (SMP) placed into the scheme reached 1,464t at the end of last year – a relatively small volume compared with outright sales into intervention, which was the preferred scheme to deal with SMP oversupply and does not appear in the CAP payments register.

Payments to dairy operators under private storage aid last year were as follows:

Ornua: €1,062,009.87

Greenfields Ireland: €195,008.99

Glanbia Foods: €110,280.89

Hoogwegt International: €25,489.98

Bandon Co-op: €19,569.64

Dairygold: €6,890.84

Pigmeat

Five meat processors also received payments to put pigmeat into storage in 2016. They were:

Queally Pig Slaughtering: €158,001.00

Rosderra Irish Meats: €124,291.55

AgraKepak International: €100,564.73