It comes as Ornua this morning announced earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation, and amortization of €43.1m for 2016, up 18pc on the previous year.
The release of the full year results comes as the April Ornua purchase price index holds steady ahead of co-ops setting the milk price for farmers.
Looking at the current dairy market situation, the Chairperson of the ICMSA Dairy Committee, Gerald Quain, has stated that the outlook continues to be positive and that milk suppliers will be expecting co-ops and processers to announce price rises that will pass back the improved returns manifest in the dairy markets over the last 6 weeks.
Quain said that current ‘spot’ prices are up almost two cents per litre for the standard Butter/SMP mixture over this six week period with WMP powder up over 1 cent per litre.
He said that this increase is on the back of noted higher returns in the earlier part of 2017 which were not passed back to suppliers.
Quain also noted that peak supplies in Europe are almost upon the point of going onto the market and there is still no sign that last year’s volumes will be reached so it is perfectly reasonable of farmers’ to expect the current milk price to increase further based on the market situation.
Source: Independent
Link: http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/dairy/lakeland-holds-milk-price-for-april-supplies-35699976.html