Aurivo lifted 0.07 kg/MS (0.5 c/litre) to go top of the September milk league. With this and a very solid fixed milk price offering, the lads from the west should be in the good books with milk suppliers.

Suppliers in the east won’t be as happy as Glanbia drops back into the third division. Remember in the last milk cheque the Glanbia mid-season top-up on milk supplied during January to June was paid out.

Aurivo was not the only processor to lift price – near neighbours Arrabawn and Lakeland also lifted 0.14 c/kg milk solids (1c/l) to keep them competitive for September. This lift pushes Arrabawn and Lakeland up alongside the west Cork Co-ops for September.

The other change was the small processor near Kanturk called North Cork who lifted 0.14c/kg milk solids (1c/l). This lifted North Cork to the top of division two ahead of near neighbours Dairygold. Dairygold, Kerry and LacPatrick all held price for the September milk cheque.

The west Cork Co-ops continue to set the pace on the rolling average for the year with another solid September milk price. Again this price excludes the milk quality bonus (0.5c/l) that is available for top-quality milk (milk under 200,000 SCC) which a lot of west Cork suppliers will get.

On average, the price paid for September milk was €4.81/kg milk solids or approximately 34.35c/l exVAT at 3.3% protein and 3.6% fat. A price of 33 to 35c/l ex-VAT covers the range in price.

Global auction

Globally, the positive trend in dairy commodities is levelling off and the last number of Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auction results have come back a couple of percent. The average result this week was back 3.5%. Weather and grazing conditions in New Zealand have improved, so milk supply is improving but the wet spring weather will probably limit the overall national increase for the year.