An extra twist on the May milk price has pushed Dairygold Co-op ahead of the west Cork co-ops for May. Leading the pack over May milk volumes will please all Dairygold milk suppliers.

Most of the co-ops, including the west Cork operations, lifted April milk price by 2c/l but Dairygold, Aurivo and Arrabawn went that little bit more and increased milk price by almost 2.5c/l lifting them in among and ahead of the west Cork co-ops’ base price.

The other three big players – Kerry, Lakeland Dairies and Glanbia – all lifted milk price by 2c/l, meaning they slip back a touch on where they were relative to the rest.

Kerry only lifted its price by 1.8c/l, so it now resides in division three alongside near neighbours, North Cork and Boherbue, which between them collect the majority of milk in the southwest of Ireland.

Comparing like for like and using national average milk solids, there is €1,100 of a difference in the May milk cheque for a farmer supplying Dairygold compared to Boherbue Co-op (Figure 2).

There is also a gap emerging between the cumulative milk cheques (comparing what has been paid out to date at national average solids).

You can see in the column in the main table that a farmer supplying Dairygold will have a total cheque close to €108,000, while a farmer supplying Boherbue or Kerry will have a cumulative payment to date this year in the order of €105,000 to €106,000.

Remember, our exercise compares base price so in the west Cork co-ops, North Cork and Kerry, they have a bonus that many get for milk supply under 200,000 SCC. This is not included in this league, so that we can compare like for like to be fair to all co-ops.