The poor Tipperary Co-op suppliers must be wondering what they did wrong. The industry as a whole moved up at least 0.13c/kilo milk solids or 1c/l in old money and the 400 Tipperary Co-op farmers didn’t get anything.

It effectively means they have lost out to the tune of €1,000 in the May milk cheque for the average supplier with 100 cows.

So, it either means the co-op needed the €400,000 cash pile for something else, or it didn’t get it in the first place with the product it sold. Tipperary Co-op has had its challenges and has made investment in processing, but surely their product mix is good enough.

After all, similar to the rest of the co-ops, they are following the market returns by a few months rather than speculating or forecasting what returns they will get.

Lakeland and Aurivo lead the way over the peak of the milk mountain, setting a strong pace in milk price at €4.78/kg MS or 34c/l excluding VAT at base solids in old money.

Lakeland rolled in their 1c/l unconditional bonus into the base price and lifted another 0.5c/l, while Aurivo lifted by 1.2c/l to keep them at the front of the pack.

As normal, Figure 2 shows what the May milk cheque looks like when we standardise the protein at 3.55% and fat at 4.20% for a supplier delivering 14% of 500,000l – the average spring calver.

Figure 3 shows the difference in the average milk cheque using the fats and proteins that the co-ops actually collected in May. Glanbia for May was €26,058 versus Bandon at €24,414 due to poorer milk solids, despite the milk price being almost the same.

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