Milk Price- Please read Mod note in post #1

Greengrass1 wrote: »

34.12c for may
@ 4.13bf
3.72 p
Scc 95

Top of the class gg excellent solids and price
30.938 c/ltr
3.68 fat
3.45 p
Scc 70
Some contrast to May 14
39.894 c/ltr
3.58 fat
3.42 p

mahoney_j wrote: »

Top of the class gg excellent solids and price
30.938 c/ltr
3.68 fat
3.45 p
Scc 70
Some contrast to May 14
39.894 c/ltr
3.58 fat
3.42 p

Ah jasus, don't be reminding us of last years prices like that.

price 30.49
b/f 3.63
p 3.49

scc 23 tbc 9

average supplied /cow 1074 ltrs

Arrabawn

kowtow wrote: »

I suspect both of you are right.

Efficiency is going to be a sine qua non for dairy survival in the near and medium term. Every acre should always count - one of the reasons that the Amish are consistently the most profitable farmers in the US.

But there comes a point where the only way to make a 100 cow herd more efficient is to make it a 200 cow herd. Economies of scale really do make a big difference, It doesn't take me much less time to milk a dozen cows, wash down a yard, etc. than it takes my neighbour to milk a hundred - and I doubt he needs any more gloves, detergent or electricity than I do for the job!

A figure I have always thought would be really interesting is tractor HP / hectare in Ireland and other EU countries. I have an inkling that we would be at the high end of the scale.

We are all in the business of trying to make the most expensive farmland in the world, with disproportionate machinery costs, generate a very high basic wage which is itself barely enough to cover an outrageous cost of living. And we're trying to do this with a commodity product for which we are price takers.

Reducing the variable cost per litre is critical , but milk sales per man are going to be an equally important factor. The fixed costs simply have to be spread across a wider base.

A glib question no doubt but why are you not buying milk (@below true cop) from your neighbour and concentrating on adding the value with the cheese.
Are you not diverting capital and effort into an unnecessary side of your business.
Im stripping it down as you often do and discounting the fact that you enjoy the milk production side of things or may feel that the end product would be devalued by importing the base ingredient.

mahoney_j wrote: »

Well Kev did u have the brekkie yet,and did u figure out if your a big lad or a small lad!!!!😛😠

Which ever one is in bigger trouble!!

stretch film wrote: »

A glib question no doubt but why are you not buying milk (@below true cop) from your neighbour and concentrating on adding the value with the cheese.
Are you not diverting capital and effort into an unnecessary side of your business.
Im stripping it down as you often do and discounting the fact that you enjoy the milk production side of things or may feel that the end product would be devalued by importing the base ingredient.

If I were planning on making commodity cheese, or even high volume supermarket cheese, I would be absolutely of that opinion.

But for premium, artisan cheese the milk production is, I think, as much a part of the story as the cheese making, and the story is a big part of the product. It is, I think at least, important for a certain type of product that a single set of hands goes from grass to cheese (obviously after washing at regular intervals ).

Not to mention the fact that there is a world of difference in milk taste (as seen in the final cheese) arising from cow diet, use of silage, even time of day of milking and time and treatment from cluster to cheese vat. This is all a part of the "terroir" which makes any artisan product unique and vitally important as a result. Commodity cheeses generally use process to wipe out these variations in ingredients (pasteurising, homogenising, fat normalisation etc.) whereas artisan producers prefer to make a feature of them.

Which always leaves me pondering the question how much should I pay for my own milk? Clearly it is more inefficient and expensive to produce the raw material on farm, but what part of the value of the final cheese belongs to the method of production?

Besides, if I didn't milk the cows myself I'd be depriving the area of a crucial source of entertainment.

Dairygold base 28 cpl
Fat 3.69
P. 3.56
Scc 144
30.2 cpl

Greengrass1 wrote: »

34.12c for may
@ 4.13bf
3.72 p
Scc 95

Why are you dragging this off topic gg?

Edit: great figures by the way

Just worked out our milk price in euros was surprised 24.5 p = 34.18 c