Irish domestic milk intake up 2.9% in June...with consumption also on the rise

Domestic milk intake by Irish creameries and pasteurisers increased by 2.9% in June 2020 compared to the same month last year, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In stats revealed today, Thursday, July 30, it was revealed that some 1.03 billion litres went through Irish dairy processors last month.

The official figures for June 2020 was 1,030.3 million litres – up some 29.3 million litres on the 1,001 million litres produced in the same month in 2019.

The CSO also noted that comparing the June 2020 milk produce figures with those for June 2019 shows that the total milk sold for human consumption increased by 3.7% to 46.7 million litres.

In numerical terms, this is up 1.7 million litres from 45 million litres sold for human consumption in the sixth month of 2019.

Of this 46.7 million litres, 31.6 million litres went in whole milk sales, while some 15 million litres went through skimmed and semi-skimmed sales.

Interestingly, it was whole milk sales that saw the increase, up 2.2 million on the 29.4 million litres sold in June 2019, while the skimmed and semi-skimmed milk category was actually back about 600,000L on June last year.

In addition, it was found that butter production increased by 7.1% to 30,120t.

Meanwhile, skimmed milk powder sales last month were up about 500t on June 2019, to 18,900t.

Milk intake

On a European level, EU milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers between January and May 2020 saw a small increase of 1.3% compared to the same time period for 2019.

Ireland’s production during this time period saw an increase of 3.7% for the first five months of 2020, recording 3,431,000t up to May this year, compared to 3,309,000t for the same time period last year.