The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has confirmed that domestic milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers increased by 5.5% last year.
During 2021, 8,754 million litres were processed; an increase of 5.5% when compared to the 2020 figure of 8,295 million litres.
The data also shows the protein and fat content of the milk collected and processed around the country.
Fat content for 2021 was 4.23, up from 4.20 in 2020, while the protein level remained unchanged at 3.55
507.7 million litres of milk was sold for human consumption last year; this is down from 525.4 million litres in 2020 and 533.2 million litres in the previous year.
Sales of whole, skimmed and semi-skimmed milk for human consumption were all down on 2020 levels.
Butter production was estimated at 275,100 tonnes in 2021, an increase of 3.9% on 2020.
Cheese production increased from 278.4t in 2019 to 285.4t last year.
Domestic Milk Intake
Meanwhile, the CSO said that domestic milk intake was down by 1% in December.
Last month, the intake was estimated at 256.3 million litres; this represents a decrease of 1% when compared to December 2020.
The CSO said that fat content increased from 4.67% in December 2020 to 4.74% in December 2021.
The protein content of the milk also increased from 3.67% to 3.71% for the same period.
Last month, 6.8t of cheese was produced, which is up from 5.4t in December 2019.
However, butter production was down from 13t in December 2019 to 12.2t last month.
During November, the CSO said that 472 million litres of domestic milk was processed by creameries and pasteurisers.
The statistics showed that this represented an increase of 4.9% over November 2020 supplies.
Elsewhere, looking to the international markets, the CSO also published data for EU milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers from the period of January to November:
