The west Cork co-ops dropped milk price for December by 0.13c/kg MS (1c/litre), but most of the rest of the co-ops held the November price into December.

LacPatrick actually bucked the trend and lifted milk price for December by 0.1c/kg MS (0.75c/l).

Management at LacPatrick are striving to keep the milk pool together and minimise leaks in these final few months prior to the Lakeland deal getting the nod from the competition authorities.

Aside from the west Cork co-ops, the next big players are Kerry, who shade the milk price ahead of LacPatrick, Dairygold and Arrabawn.

Lakeland Dairies are next on a par with Glanbia.

Division three

Tipperary Co-op and Aurivo bring up the rear and have Division three to themselves. Tipperary are paying about the same as Aurivo for protein but a good bit more for fat than Aurivo.

Tipp Co-op suppliers won’t be happy to see milk price stay at the reduced November price but given what the business has been through in 2018, they can be thankful.

This price excludes the 3 c/l top-up that is paid on December supplies to those qualifying farmers, depending on peak to trough supply.

While the volumes processed in December are up 10 to 20% or more compared to the same month in 2017, the volumes are still relatively small and this has helped the big players hold price for November.

Aurivo, Lakeland, LacPatrick and Glanbia are probably buying that bit more milk at this time of the year than some of the rest.

Differences

While December supply for most farmers is much smaller in volume, the difference between top and bottom in milk price means there is €365 less in the milk cheque.

Remember, conditional bonuses are not included in this league ranking as the objective is to try and compare the prices on a like-for-like base price basis.

So the farmer might actually get more in the milk cheque if he/she achieves all the quality parameters, gets conditional bonuses, etc.

West Cork co-ops have a 0.88c/l bonus for milk less than 200,000 cells/ml, while Kerry has a 0.4c/l bonus for milk under 200,000 cells/ml.

Average November price

The average price for the main table is €4.30/kg MS, which is equivalent to about 30.6c/l at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat ex-VAT.