Milk intakes are running 6% to 10% ahead of 2024 on a year-to-date basis, with weekly deliveries around 5% higher than the corresponding week last year.

Strong grass growth through the spring and early summer has helped drive on milk output. A staggered peak, which was 10 days later in northern counties this year, has also helped maintain high overall deliveries for the last month.

In terms of individual processors, supplies to Dairygold for May were 3% higher than the volumes recorded in 2024.

Dairygold’s milk supply was up 6% for the year to the end of May 2025 versus the same period in 2024, while last week’s supply was 5% higher when compared to the same week in 2024.

Tirlán’s milk supply continues to be strong. Milk intakes last week were 5% higher than the same week in 2024, with year-to-date supplies up over 7%.

“However, it is off a low base as the first half of 2024 was impacted by poor weather conditions,” a Tirlán spokesperson said.

Supplies to Lakeland Dairies were 6-8% higher than 2024 for May milk, for weekly deliveries and for year-to-date deliveries.

Volumes to Kerry Dairy Ireland are up 10% year-to-date and 5.4% week-on-week versus the same period in 2024.

Milk supplies to Aurivo were up 6% in May this year when compared to the same month last year.

In the year to the end of May, supplies to the western co-op were up some 7% when compared with the same period in 2024.

Supplies to Carbery were up 3% in May compared to the same month last year, putting its supplies for the January to May period up 4.9% on the same period of 2024. A Carbery spokesperson said week-on-week milk supplies had been running into double digits in April and eased back to single digits in May. The co-op reached its peak supply earlier than usual, with the supply peak flatter than last year.

Volumes

Milk supplies to North Cork Co-op were 11% up on 2024 for the year to the end of May.

Milk volumes for the last three weeks were 12%, 11% and 8% higher than the corresponding three weeks in 2024.

The latest Central Statistics Office figures show that milk intakes for April at 1.07bn litres were 120m litres or 12.6% higher than 2024.

For the period January to April 2025, milk intakes were 175m litres (7.9%) higher than 2024 and reached 2.38bn litres. However, milk volumes were down by 6.3m litres (0.3%) when compared with 2023.