North Cork Co-op saw its turnover grow 11% last year to surpass €125m for the first time in its history.

The strong growth in sales was driven by increased volumes of butter and milk powders. North Cork’s turnover has now doubled since the end of milk quotas in 2015.

In all, North Cork processed over 31,000t of bulk dairy products in 2019 such as butter, whey butter, whey powder, skimmed milk powder and casein. The co-op also processed close to 7.2m litres of liquid milk.

Earnings

Earnings (EBITDA) for the year were generally steady at €2.1m, while operating profits fell 24% year on year to €251,000. The co-op has no debt despite investments in increased processing capacity over the last five years.

The co-op said it paid an average milk price of 31.49c/l last year (excl VAT) and also made a 13th payment of €344,000 to its 250 farmer suppliers.

In 2019, North Cork said it processed the equivalent of 310m litres of milk. Of this, some 85m litres was supplied by its own farmer suppliers, with the remainder processed on behalf of other dairy co-ops in contract and toll arrangements.

Food ingredients

“Although we’re the smallest of the Irish dairy co-ops, our capacity lends itself to produce niche food ingredients. We’re now doing a lot of food ingredients with a functional twist for B2B customers,” said North Cork CEO Pat Sheahan.

For 2020, Sheahan said milk prices had been very resilient this year, particularly when the outlook for dairy markets looked very difficult back in March and April. However, he said markets had recovered well and prices for dairy ingredients like casein had performed really well this year.