Large v small volume milk collections

delaval

At a funeral this am and a conversation started about milk collections. One guy put forward the suggestion that farmers should get a higher price if their collection was over a certain volume, lets say 5000litres.

It had never crossed my mind, what do ye think?

Less stops for the lorry therefore less time and fuel to fill the load should surely lead to a saving for the processor

visatorro

Am I right in saying milk lorries capacity is 27000 litres?

delaval

visatorro wrote: »

Am I right in saying milk lorries capacity is 27000 litres?

26-27k thats right

Timmaay

Would it lead to some farmers attempting to go say 4/5days without a collection, and possible quality issues? I'm actually in abit of a pickle at the minute in terms of bulk tank size, I'm getting a new 11kL tank, which is plenty big enough for the cows i can carry on the current block, but if I was to expand more than I expect to in the future (and opportunities exist around me), then I'd be short on space for 3day collection. If the likes of Glanbia committed to collecting my milk every 2nd day it would make my expansion more viable.

Gillespy

It's 3 days here at peak. What more can I do? Sounds like a plan to punish smaller producers.

visatorro

I'd say I'm the smallest collection on my guys round. I know he collects from a fella with a 29000 Lt tank. There is still plenty of herds milking around fifty cows. It's does seem UN economical that he can full up in one place and then have to drive to ten places to fill up and get paid the same for each tanker load

hurling_lad

I doubt that the co-ops would be inclined to go for something like this. The possible quality issues that may arise would probably outweigh any marginal saving on fuel.

biddy2013

doubt there are too many farms sending 5000l a collection at the minute

delaval

Thinking about this since. If you buy a lorry of fert or a bulker of feed they're savings to be had. One transaction on stop delivery. Why should milk be different.

I'm not talking about smaller volumes getting paid less but rather larger volumes being paid more. The coops won't go for it as the savings can be kept for themselves.

delaval

biddy2013 wrote: »

doubt there are too many farms sending 5000l a collection at the minute

Some are and some are sending 100's of litres, which is more economical to collect. Accepting of course that all quality milk has to be collected

jaymla627

Its the norm in the uk, but its something like over 8, 000 litres a collection the bigger lads are on 1 to 1.5 pence extra then the smaller producers

mf240

My lorry driver owns his own truck. So the creamery don't care.

You shouldnt be talking at a funeral anyway.

Gillespy

1-1.5p/l seems an awful lot. It never worth that to them, the haulers aren't getting rich of them either. Unless their agenda is really to squeeze out those small farmers.

Brown Podzol

delaval wrote: »

At a funeral this am and a conversation started about milk collections. One guy put forward the suggestion that farmers should get a higher price if their collection was over a certain volume, lets say 5000litres.

It had never crossed my mind, what do ye think?

Less stops for the lorry therefore less time and fuel to fill the load should surely lead to a saving for the processor

How would this sit with co-op ethos?

visatorro

i thought all the lorry men owned their own lorries and just got paid per litre. no matter how long it took them to fill their load or how much diesel they used. maybe that's just glanbia

RobertKK

It would be discrimination against smaller suppliers who have a right to get paid the same for their milk.

Don't some co-ops want and require the farmer to be a co-op shareholder to supply milk?
Therefore the farmer who sends a lot more milk is equal to the farmer who sends less milk.

It would cause a lot of problems for the milk buyer if the idea was ever taken up by any of the dairy companies.
It would be no different than an F off to smaller suppliers if it was ever introduced, we only want the big farmers.
One could say a farmer representative body is having problems with that perception after the CAP negotiations.

jaymla627

Gillespy wrote: »

1-1.5p/l seems an awful lot. It never worth that to them, the haulers aren't getting rich of them either. Unless their agenda is really to squeeze out those small farmers.

When you take into account administration costs/testing costs/haulage costs having 4 big lads filling your lorry as opposed to 20 plus smaller lads I would definetley say their is significant savings (economies of scale I think its called)
Another unforeseen plus in terms of glanbia and the bellview plant where milk has to be under 200, 000 scc if their able to fill their tanker at 5-6 farms it significantly reduces their risk of rejected loads in comparsion to a tanker calling to10 plus farms to fill his load

delaval

Ok, I'll ask another way. Do you all agree or not that less stops would mean savings?

farmerjj

delaval wrote: »

Ok, I'll ask another way. Do you all agree or not that less stops would mean savings?

ya of course, but y not get farmers to take out milk themselves, that would save money 2..:rolleyes:

Brown Podzol

Yes. The fewer the stops the less per ltr to assemble the load.

TEAT SQUEEZER

delaval wrote: »

At a funeral this am and a conversation started about milk collections. One guy put forward the suggestion that farmers should get a higher price if their collection was over a certain volume, lets say 5000litres.

It had never crossed my mind, what do ye think?

Less stops for the lorry therefore less time and fuel to fill the load should surely lead to a saving for the processor[/QUO

perhaps a high milk solids supplier should be penalised too ie: more weight per unit of volume...... yeah thought that would wipe the smile of yer face .... grief can manifest itself in many different ways it seems:D

RobertKK

delaval wrote: »

Ok, I'll ask another way. Do you all agree or not that less stops would mean savings?

It depends.

If you have a lot of suppliers in one area on the route and none much out of the way, then the savings would be minimal.

The person sending a lot of milk could be out of the way and means longer travel.

Smaller suppliers like me live in northern Kilkenny are not that far away from the processing factory and so would cost less to get the milk to the factory.

Should farmers further away be penalised for being further away from the factory? (No is my answer by the way)

I think it would just cause headaches which is why it wouldn't happen, because the scenarios are more than just large volumes and smaller volumes of milk per supplier, you could just say why not have suppliers closer to the factory pay less?
I'm sure the co-ops are happy to keep things as they are, as it would not be black and white on the cost per litre to get the milk from the bulk tank to the factory.

funny man

Read alot of nonsense here of late but this takes the biscuit!

Firstly a kg of milk is a kg of milk no matter if its 91% or 93% water.

Delaval what way are you been charged for your milk collection?

funny man

RobertKK wrote: »

It depends.

If you have a lot of suppliers in one area on the route and none much out of the way, then the savings would be minimal.

The person sending a lot of milk could be out of the way and means longer travel.

Smaller suppliers like me live in northern Kilkenny are not that far away from the processing factory and so would cost less to get the milk to the factory.

Should farmers further away be penalised for being further away from the factory? (No is my answer by the way)

I think it would just cause headaches which is why it wouldn't happen, because the scenarios are more than just large volumes and smaller volumes of milk per supplier, you could just say why not have suppliers closer to the factory pay less?
I'm sure the co-ops are happy to keep things as they are, as it would not be black and white on the cost per litre to get the milk from the bulk tank to the factory.

it's called Co-op ethos, farmers working together.

Timmaay

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

perhaps a high milk solids supplier should be penalised too ie: more weight per unit of volume...... yeah thought that would wipe the smile of yer face .... grief can manifest itself in many different ways it seems:D

Its like butter coming out of the tank, has to be sucked out and takes double the time, definite 1c/l reduction for that!

RobertKK

funny man wrote: »

it's called Co-op ethos, farmers working together.

I fully agree.

keep going

And farmers who are farther away should be charged more than fellas close to the plant or if they havent another supplier within half a mile and fellas with awkward yards should get less for the milk .dont talk about all the fellas that dont calve all their cows on feb the third so they have a full tank on the first collectionor the lads who dont have a 3 inch outlet on their tank shouldn't even be collected.final rule all collection should last at least as long as a tea and sandwich and a bun

awaywithyou

so if a lad isnt born into a land block of 200 acres beside the processors factory he should suffer by not getting paid the same for his litre of milk as the lad that is...??

this is one of the stupidest threads in a long time

Bactidiaryl

awaywithyou wrote: »

so if a lad isnt born into a land block of 200 acres beside the processors factory he should suffer by not getting paid the same for his litre of milk as the lad that is...??

this is one of the stupidest threads in a long time

I agree. Let's knock it on the head guys.

cute geoge

awaywithyou wrote: »

so if a lad isnt born into a land block of 200 acres beside the processors factory he should suffer by not getting paid the same for his litre of milk as the lad that is...??

this is one of the stupidest threads in a long time

The pity is all the lads with the big blocks of land have fecked off to austalia and the only lads filling quotos will be the small men with 30 cows

biddy2013

mf240 wrote: »

You shouldnt be talking at a funeral anyway.

this drives me crazy, if you want a social outing go to the pub or the mart and have a chat, why bother going to a funeral if you are only going there so people can see you are there and it is totally disrespectful to the dead person to talk to other people during the service. Was at a local farmers funeral last year, 2 local glanbia board member spoke to each other the whole way through the ceremony and in the graveyard, total pricks, rant over:cool:

Farmer Pudsey

The higher the milk solids the lighter the load. Cream floats. The Specfic Gravity of milk is 0.98 I think, so you will be ok on that one Delboy.

Like a few posters pointed out this would open a can of worms as suppliers nearer thr factory would want discounts. Cannot imgine it being worth more than 0.5c/l. On a 28K tanker @ 1c/l it is equivlent to 280/load. unlikly these are the economic costs.

However down the line if we get a few private milk processors and a few extra large dairy farms I could see a bit of daling going on.

Other issue is the can of worms it would lead to in that truck migh be passing gate, farmers will not want milk collected until tomorrow as he has 6K tank and only 4.4KL in tank, tomorrow he will get 1.5c/L more when 5.9KL in tank

delaval

awaywithyou wrote: »

so if a lad isnt born into a land block of 200 acres beside the processors factory he should suffer by not getting paid the same for his litre of milk as the lad that is...??

this is one of the stupidest threads in a long time

That's BS and you know it. If it costs less to collect closer to the plant or if volume is high enough to be a saving, why shouldn't the farmer get that saving?

A lot on puke on about the big bad company and how it has lost the coop ethos.

If people are so worried about the coop ethis why do they have a problem investing in shares or in developing the coop?

delaval

funny man wrote: »

Read alot of nonsense here of late but this takes the biscuit!

Firstly a kg of milk is a kg of milk no matter if its 91% or 93% water.

Delaval what way are you been charged for your milk collection?

No charge.

Brown Podzol

delaval wrote: »

That's BS and you know it. If it costs less to collect closer to the plant or if volume is high enough to be a saving, why shouldn't the farmer get that saving?

A lot on puke on about the big bad company and how it has lost the coop ethos.

If people are so worried about the coop ethis why do they have a problem investing in shares or in developing the coop?

No, it will cost the same to run the fleet, the small guy far away will pay more the bit guy will pay less.

funny man

delaval wrote: »

No charge.

well what more do you want.

for a good vibrant dairy industry we need all suppliers and penalising suppliers for small quantities of milk would be a new low for any processor.

i taught we could leave bringing milk to the road behind us.

TEAT SQUEEZER

purchasers of ration in the portlaoise and clonroche areas have long since accepted that they`re not entitled to cheaper meal ... they in effect subsidise the cork and louth farmers in the same way the big lads sub the smaller .the milk price takes acc of transport costs ...

glanbias future intention is to pay hauliers by the hour not the litre ... some one some where (esp with expansion ) thinks its still value collecting all sizes..........

John_F

fonterra trucks drive 81 million kilometers or 50 million miles each year. that's the same as 100 trips to the moon. . . and back! Picking up 14.5 billion litres of milk! 2020 harvest projects ireland will do 6 billion litres of milk i think

the fonterra trucks have the most advanced technology in the world for milk collection with gps telling the truck to collect farmer x next as he is closest and has x amount of litres in the tank and picks the most efficinet route, there is no set route, they invested millions into it around 2007 i think it was. they also work 24 hours a day. they are probably the most efficient at collecting milk in the world.

given that irish farms are alot more scattered and smaller than nz farms, it would be interesting to know if in an ideal situation with a fonterra type coop in ireland doing most of the national supply how many miles would be clocked up compared to the nz collections.

50 million miles is alot of diesel, not to mind half that! if there was such a system it would have to be a carrot more than a stick approach, bonus instead of using the word penalty

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWpHCIajS0

ps only say your prayers at funerals

RobertKK

TEAT SQUEEZER wrote: »

purchasers of ration in the portlaoise and clonroche areas have long since accepted that they`re not entitled to cheaper meal ... they in effect subsidise the cork and louth farmers in the same way the big lads sub the smaller .the milk price takes acc of transport costs ...

glanbias future intention is to pay hauliers by the hour not the litre ... some one some where (esp with expansion ) thinks its still value collecting all sizes..........

Yeah I think it would be a bad message by the co-ops to send out if they did charge those with smaller volumes when in fact they want everyone to be like a ship on a rising tide of milk supply from next year.

Clutch Pack

Interesting thread, I wonder does anyone remember Mitchelstown Co-op (pre Dairygold) and its attempt to bring in a flat rate collection charge for every supplier regardless of volume.
The charge iirc was £3.00 per collection £45.00 a month for fifteen collections.Now £45.00 in those days was nearly a weeks wages(early eightys).
It was a "what have we done moment" for the Co-op at the time as it created a sh1tstorm which was truly epic:D
The co-op eventually rowed back on the proposals after an SGM which the board survived by only a handfull of votes.
It even made national news i can remember Michael Lally RTE's ag correspontdent at the time covering the meeting with a camera crew.