The west Cork co-ops held milk price for June and so continue to lead the field. North Cork Co-op, based out of Kanturk but with suppliers in Kerry, and nearby Boherbue, were the only processors to drop milk price for June.

North Cork dropped the value of fat and protein and hence the euro per kilo milk solids figure drops from €4.18/kg last month to €4.11/kg this month (29c/l ex-VAT).

Lakeland maintains a very strong milk price into June and is sitting pretty on top of division two, above the two small north Cork Co-ops Boherbue and North Cork.

Aurivo leads the big players in division three, marginally ahead of Kerry and the other big players. It’s intersting right through peak supply in 2019 the northern and western co-ops have led the way on price from the big eastern and southern players. All the big players – Aurivo, Kerry, Arrabawn, Dairygold and Glanbia – are in division three.

Milk cheque

So what does all this mean? For a Drinagh supplier in west Cork delivering a typical 13% of 500,000 litres in June, the milk cheque would be €21,960.

However, if you were supplying Glanbia/Centenary Thurles at the other end of the table on price, you would only be getting a cheque of €20,500 – almost €1,500 of a difference in output when we compare prices on a like-for-like basis (see Figure 1).

The Dutch price for FrieslandCampina for July milk is 35.75c/l for milk at 4.41% fat and 3.47% protein. On a like-for-like basis with Irish milk solids, that’s a good 5c/l ahead of what most of the Irish milk is being bought at.

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