But for an exceptional gain associated with their pension scheme (€1.6m), these losses would have increased to €2.4m when interest and pension costs are included.

Wexford have been undergoing their own internal transformation as they try and bring their production costs back in line with other similar dairy processors.

Staff numbers have been reduced by 25-30%, as management attempt to tackle wage costs, increase productivity with the use of new technology (new vats) along with other cost reduction programmes, e.g. outsourcing milk collection.

Wexford’s shareholder funds stand at €23m at year end with €2.1m in cash, bank debts of €3.26m and an annual interest bill of €407,743. Prior to Kerry acquiring Newmarket Co-op, which was of a similar scale to Wexford, Newmarket had significantly lower production costs and higher productivity.

Wexford process some 150 m litres each year from their own suppliers which is used primarily for the production of cheese (cheddar), they sell their whey to Glanbia and have the capacity to process a further 150m litres. Wexford use 7m litres each year for their local liquid milk business.

Glanbia and Wexford have a long standing relationship where Wexford process milk for Glanbia during the peak months and given Wexford’s well documented recent woes (board upheavals in 2012, poor milk price) and where WMP, the 70% owners of Wexford Creamery have confirmed that they have entered exclusive discussions with Glanbia Ingredients Ireland Ltd on finalising a more formal agreement/structure.

Wexford was owned by Unigate Plc since 1959 (which also had a stake/involvement with Carbery and Waterford Co-op in the past) and sold its stake (80%) to Dairy Crest (DC) back in 2000. Wexford Milk Producers (WMP) owned 20% and represents Wexford’s 320 milk suppliers who supply some 150 m litres each year which is used to produce 15,000 tonnes of cheese, two thirds of which is sold through their Dairy Crest association and the remaining third is sold through the Irish Dairy Board.

In June 2010, WMP acquired a further 50% of Wexford Creamery from DC bring their stake to 70% where they utilised the company’s own reserves to acquire these shares (buy back) from Dairy Crest.