Lakeland Dairies held off a late challenge from Dairygold to hold top spot for Christmas in the November monthly milk league.

Dairygold chair John O’Gorman and outgoing CEO Jim Woulfe put the milk price accelerator down with a 1.4c/l upward shift in price. However, it wasn’t enough to overtake Lakeland chair Niall Matthews and CEO Michael Hanley who have held top spot since August in the monthly league.

In reality, it’s a bunch finish at the top of the league with most of the co-ops paying a variation of 37c/l base price in old money for November milk, or €5.20’kg milk solids. That is all except for Kerry and the small North Cork-based Boherbue Co-op, which is paying closer to 36c/l base or just over €5/kg milk solids.

So, as Irish milk supplies dwindle to a trickle, manufacturing milk price is peaking.

A combination of good solids and a higher price (3.98% protein and 4.98% fat) means Dairygold tops the milk cheque league for November (Figure 2), paying out €9,700 to the average Dairygold supplier who delivers 4% of annual supply in November.

Lakeland takes the top spot when we do the same exercise using national average solids at 4.2% fat and 3.55% protein. This excludes conditional bonuses, such as SCC bonuses, etc (Figure 1). The GDT auction was down a touch this week (1.5%). However, it has been rising up since August.

The difference between the Ornua PPI and the average league price still exists.

The processors say that processing costs have risen substantially in the autumn and hence the cost of processing is much more expensive than the Ornua formula permits. They also say they need to make a margin, which again the Ornua formula does not include.

The final claim they make is that not all of the Ornua PPI result is using Irish milk, so it’s not exactly comparing like with like. More to come on this.