The Ornua index for dairy commodities has just been released and it rose again for November.

The equivalent milk price is now 41.95c/l ex VAT at base solids. This is up from 39.5c/l in October, which was up from 37.8 c/litre the month before that.

There has been a wide and increasing gap between the average milk price paid and the Ornua index.

The index has come in for criticism from the processors as they say it includes non-irish product and doesn’t include a margin for their processing business while processing costs have risen substantially.

The index was revamped last year to separate out the Ornua value payment and take into account increasing processing costs.

The Ornua Purchase Price Index for the month of November is 131.9 (40.3cpl, VAT inclusive based on Ornua’s product purchase mix and assumed member processing costs of 7cpl), up from 125.6 in the previous month. The increase is as a result of continued stronger returns across the product range.

In addition, the Ornua Value Payment payable to members in the month is €6.35m, which equated to 8.4% of gross purchases in the month (year to date 6.7%).