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Lakeland held its milk price for June at 29.7c/l excluding VAT for standard constituents of milk. The board of Glanbia is meeting this Thursday.
Lakeland signalled pressure on butter prices, saying: “While supply in many of the large milk production regions remains subdued, there continues to be weakness in the global dairy markets.
“With butter prices at four-year lows, the co-op will continue to monitor the market closely.”
The news follows a drop in the Ornua purchase price index (PPI) to 105.7 from 107.3 the previous month. This is a farmgate equivalent price of 30c/l excluding VAT, based on Ornua’s product purchase mix and assumed costs of 6.5c/l.
IFA dairy chair Tom Phelan said the PPI still leaves room for the majority of co-ops to increase their June milk price by 1c/l.
“Apart from the west Cork co-ops, all milk purchasing co-ops have undershot the Ornua PPI in the milk price they have returned to farmers for most of the last seven months,” Phelan said.
Open day
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the Moorepark open day last week, Dairygold CEO Jim Woulfe said that while milk prices are expected to hold this month, he suggests they will drop below the 30c/l mark this year.
However, earlier this year, Glanbia CEO Jim Bergin said that there would be a “three”in the milk price for 2019 and didn’t see a “huge reason for price decreasing below this”.
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