Having held first place since March, Dale Farm is again out in front in our 650,000-litre milk league for milk supplied in July.NI’s largest co-op finished with a price of 28.67p/litre for milk collected on alternate days, putting it 0.54p/litre ahead of Lakeland Dairies, which paid an alternate day collection price of 28.13p/litre.
Having held first place since March, Dale Farm is again out in front in our 650,000-litre milk league for milk supplied in July.
NI’s largest co-op finished with a price of 28.67p/litre for milk collected on alternate days, putting it 0.54p/litre ahead of Lakeland Dairies, which paid an alternate day collection price of 28.13p/litre.
After finishing in sixth position in June, Lakeland added 1p/litre to its base price, taking it to 27.5p/litre for July. That is still 1p/litre behind the Dale Farm base for July, which came to 28.5p/litre once the 0.3p/litre loyalty bonus is added in.
However, Lakeland has no haulage charges for milk collected on alternate days. In contrast, Dale Farm has a cost of 0.47p/litre on alternate day collection. It means that the actual gap in price between both processors narrows to 0.54p/litre.
Excluded from the Dale Farm price is the new milk expansion initiative payment, which will see an additional 3p/litre paid on extra litres produced every month from July 2018 to March 2019, when compared with the same month in the previous year.
Across all milk supplied to Dale Farm in July, the expansion bonus is worth an additional 0.26p/litre.
Milk quality
The July milk league is based on a dairy farmer producing 650,000 litres annually. Milk quality is based on the average DAERA milk quality statistics for the same month in 2017. Those averages put butterfat at 3.87%, protein 3.22%, lactose 4.66% with 19 TBC and 227 SCC.
Among the other milk buyers, LacPatrick climbed four places to third in the league table, paying a 650,000 supplier 27.85p/litre. The Monaghan-based co-op added 1p/litre to its July base price, taking it to 27.5p/litre, the same as its potential merger partner, Lakeland.
Just behind LacPatrick is Strathroy, which added 1.5p/litre to its base price, also taking it to 27.5p/litre. Having been bottom of the league for a number of months, the Omagh-based processor is in fourth place, with a Red Tractor price of 27.81p/litre, while its standard price is in eighth place on 27.61p/litre.
Glanbia Milk, Fivemiletown and Aurivo are all placed mid-table, with just 0.2p/litre separating them. This leaves Glanbia Cheese at the bottom of the table for July on 27.57p/litre.
Rolling average
In terms of the rolling average price paid to a 650,000-litre supplier over the last 12 months, Dale Farm remains marginally ahead of Lakeland at the top.
Dale Farm’s average price paid of 29.81p/litre is just 0.01p ahead of Lakeland on 29.80p/litre.
Aurivo moves up the table to equal third alongside Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown on 29.37p/litre, with Glanbia Cheese in sixth place, followed by LacPatrick and Strathroy.
Dale Farm has also paid the highest 12-month rolling milk price to those on daily collection, followed by Aurivo and Glanbia Cheese.
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