Dairygold has said it is taking steps to “Brexit-proof” its business and is exploring European opportunities after seeing its operating profits rise 85% last year on foot of the increase in butter prices.

Dairygold has announced an operating profit of €32.4m (2016: €17.5 million) generated from a turnover of €965.5 million (up 28% on prior year) as it published its annual results for the year ended 31 December 2017.

Dairygold is investing €11.5m enhancing 13 of its 39 stores, boosting Agri Direct, Agri E-Commerce site and other online services.

Plans for a major new cheese production facility by Dairygold in East Cork are being put on hold following objections by residents.

The Brexit threat is the gravest agri-business has ever faced in Ireland, bosses at Dairygold have warned. Dairygold chief executive Jim Woulfe said dairy, beef and rural industry faced a crisis if a hard Brexit occurred, an event which he said had “gigantic repercussions” for Ireland.

Dairygold Co-op has told Cork County Council the discharge from its new factory will not undermine water quality in Cork Harbour as similar wastewater is already being dumped there.

Dairygold will create a significant number of new jobs when its proposed new Jarlsberg cheese plant becomes operational in 2019.

Norway’s largest farmer-owned dairy co-operative TINE are to open a new Jarlsberg cheese production facility in Ireland.

Dairygold says it will continue to give its suppliers a strong milk price during 2016, despite global market pressures having driven its 2015 profits down 34% to €19.2m from €28.6m in 2014.

An international milk price comparison shows Dairygold Co-op paying more for milk in February than Glanbia or Kerry, in contrast to Irish milk price leagues which show it paying a lower price.

His three-day sit-in at Dairygold Co-op’s boardroom may have landed him in the High Court, but dairy farmer Ned McCarthy remains adamant: “I’m definitely not going to give up on getting my money.”

Colourful silage fields will spread the message of support for children’s hospitals and raising breast cancer awareness this summer.

Dairygold is to offer a number of former milk suppliers an incremental annualised repayment of their shareholding.

Cashing in the shares of defecting suppliers would cost Dairygold less than €1m, says one farmer who now supplies Arrabawn co-op.

Dairy farmer Teddy Cashman has been elected as chairman of the National Dairy Council.

Dairygold yesterday followed the example of other milk processors and reduced the price it will pay suppliers for June milk.

Dairygold expects its annual milk supply to exceed a billion litres in the coming years, and has plans to deliver added value at every point along its processing chain.