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The November milk league reflects some of the positive sentiment in global dairy markets at the moment.
There was a lift in price for Lakeland, Glanbia, Dairygold, Kerry and Centenary Thurles. For November, it means Lakeland takes the honours at the top while Arrabawn, Tipperary Co-op and Boherbue (North Cork) fill Division 3.
The November Lakeland price of €4.41/kg milk solids (31.63c/l) does not include the 3c/l seasonality bonus Lakeland pays out. This bonus is conditional on supplying 50% of May milk volume.
Similarly, we don’t include the west Cork SCC bonus which rises to 0.88c/l for milk supplied at less than 200,000 cells/ml. In the league, we attempt to compare the base prices without conditional bonuses.
Suppliers to Dairygold will be delighted to see the co-op paying a better milk price for November, which lifts it to the top of Division 2. Dairygold hasn’t been near this position for a long time. Many Dairygold suppliers will have small volumes in November. However, they’ll be hoping they can keep that relative position into February and March next year.
The other big players to move upwards are Kerry and Glanbia. Glanbia introduced a Biodiversity bonus instead of lifting base price. Kerry lifted base price 0.5 c/l to reach to the 30c/l mark ex VAT at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat. Both were in Division 3 last month.
Bottom of table
Arrabawn and Tipperary Co-op bring up the bottom of the monthly league table, with the small north Cork Co-op Boherbue at the very tail end. The two Tipperary co-ops have done a good bit of capital development to upgrade facilities and improve product mix. Boherbue has no such excuse as it simply trades the milk.
Milk markets remain positive, with recent trends pointing prices upwards. The GDT auction from New Zealand lifted on the last three occasions, helping Fonterra to announce that it was strengthening forecast farmer payout.
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