An additional 7c/l for liquid milk is being sought by the IFA this winter to combat the higher input costs and the weakening base milk prices, Áine O’Connell of IFA told attendees at the launch of the IFA liquid milk roadmap on Tuesday.
“Critically, we do not expect consumers to pay this. We [IFA] believe the existing retail price is sufficient to return more back to farmers.
“When we look at the retail price at where that has went in the last five years, we can see that the retail price of a 2l milk has gone from €1.49 to €2.25.
“On a per litre basis, that is a 38c per litre rise in the retail price of milk. Yet farmers only get 2.8c per litre, the remaining 35.2c is shared by the processors and the retailers.”
She noted that between 2021 and 2025, a strong base price helped carry higher input costs, but said that is no longer the case, and as a significant recovery in the base price of manufacturing in the next six months is not expected, “something has to change”.
