Lakeland Dairies reported an operating profit, before exceptional items and interest costs, of €14.5m in 2023.

Turnover at the cross-border operation dropped from €1.9bn in 2022 to €1.6bn.

Once those exceptional costs are taken into account, the final figure for the year is a loss after tax of just over €8m.

Group chief executive Colin Kelly emphasised that the exceptional costs are exactly that - once-off costs that will not recur on an ongoing basis.

The costs have been incurred as part of the co-op’s previously announced restructuring of its processing footprint, which includes the closure of sites at Monaghan, Lough Egish and Banbridge.

Milk pool

The co-op's milk pool dropped 2.5% to approximately two billion litres. The drop in supply was both skewed towards the second half of the year - after a strong start to 2023 - and towards the Republic of Ireland, which saw an almost 10% drop. Supplies from Northern Ireland held relatively stable across the year.

Kelly told the Irish Farmers Journal that they are seeing a similar pattern for the start of this year, with Northern Ireland supplies even slightly ahead of where they were at this time in 2023, while there is a 4% to 5% decline in deliveries from ROI.

However, he did say that protein was well back in milk delivered so far this year.

Lakeland said that it paid €800m to milk suppliers last year, with a little more than half of that to farmers in Northern Ireland. The co-op paid an average milk price, ex-VAT, of 37.86c/l in ROI in 2023, down from 54.03c/l in 2022. In Northern Ireland, the average milk price was 34.22p/l, down from 45.20p/l.

See full analysis of Lakeland's earnings and an interview with CEO Colin Kelly in Thursday's Irish Farmers Journal.