Domestic milk intake down 3.6% in October

Domestic milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers was estimated at 618.9 million litres for October 2019. This was 3.6% below the corresponding 2018 figure, according to the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

In the latest figures, published by the office on Friday, November 29, comparison between October this year and last year also shows that total milk sold for human consumption increased by 1.2% to 45.7 million litres.

Meanwhile, it was found that butter production was down 0.1% to 20,260t.

However, when comparing the first 10 months of the year from January to October 2019 with the same period last year, milk production was up 6.9% overall.

This saw a rise from 6.87 billion litres to 7.34 billion litres, according to the CSO.

In the month of October 2019, it was found that, of the 45.7 million litres sold for human consumption, some 28.8 million litres went as whole milk sales, up from 27.3 million during the same month in 2018.

Meanwhile, 16.8 million litres of skimmed and semi-skimmed milk were sold last month, down 1.1 million on the 17.9 million litres sold in October 2018.

No figure has been released yet for either skimmed milk powder or cheese for last month.

In terms of milk intake by creameries and pasteurisers across the EU, it was noted that the EU as a whole took in 108.1 million tonnes for the first eight months of 2019, January to August; this is up 0.4% on the 107.6 million tonnes recorded for the same period in 2018.

Of this, Ireland recorded 6.2 million tonnes – up 9.1% on the 5.7 million tonnes for the eight months of the previous year.