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For the fourth month in succession, Dale Farm is top of our monthly NI milk league, after the co-op decided to increase its milk price by 1p/litre for June supplies.
This put NI’s largest milk processor on a base price of 28.5p/litre, which includes its 0.3p/litre loyalty bonus, paid to all but a handful of suppliers.
When factoring in the relevant payments on milk quality, volume and transport costs, Dale Farm paid a price of 28.63p/litre to a 650,000 litre supplier where milk is collected on alternate days.
With its base price a full 1p/litre ahead of the nearest competitor, the co-op is likely to remain in a strong league position in the coming months unless there are significant moves by others to close the price gap.
The June milk league is based on a dairy farmer supplying 650,000 litres annually. The price paid to a farmer is based on average DAERA milk quality statistics taken from the same month in 2017. Those averages had protein at 3.2%, butterfat at 3.87%, lactose at 4.68%, with TBC of 18 and SCC at 217.
At the outlined milk qualities, butterfat is currently at the base level used by a number of processors, with protein just marginally ahead of base.
Therefore, top-up payments for milk quality are less of a factor in the June league compared with later in the year. This makes the actual base prices on offer the biggest factor in determining league positions.
Second
After a number of months where Lakeland was a close second to Dale Farm, that position is now taken by Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown, which have climbed two places in the June league with an alternate day milk price of 27.8p/litre.
Their league position for June was significantly improved after a 1p/litre increase in base price, which brought them to 27.5p/litre, which includes the 0.6p/litre year-round bonus.
Glanbia Cheese is in fourth position on 27.57p/litre and again helped by its 1p/litre price increase, to a base of 27p/litre. Aurivo slips from third to fifth place, followed by Lakeland, which has slipped from second to sixth place after it held its base price on 26.5p/litre. LacPatrick and Strathroy round out the table.
Rolling average
Dale Farm has now overtaken Lakeland at the top of the rolling 12-month league for a 650,000 litre supplier, paying an average price of 29.76p/litre over the past year.
This puts it 0.03p/litre ahead of Lakeland, which is now in second place, followed by Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown in joint third place.
Aurivo remains the best paying co-op where milk is collected on a daily basis, followed by Dale Farm and Glanbia Cheese in second.
Dale Farm leads one million litre leagues
Similar to the 650,000 litre milk leagues, Dale Farm is dominating both the monthly and 12-month rolling average league tables for a 1m litre producer. Shown in Table B are the relevant milk prices paid by each processor during June for milk delivered at three different milk qualities as outlined in Table 2.
On good-quality milk, Dale Farm has once again topped the league with an alternate day price of 30.4p/litre. It is the only co-op paying above the 30p/litre mark.
Glanbia Cheese is in second place, which is a gain of two positions from last month for the Magheralin-based processor. A 1m litre supplier of good-quality milk to the company benefits from no charge on milk collection, plus the new 0.2p/litre mozzarella cheese bonus and the new 0.65p/litre volume bonus.
Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown are in joint third position followed by Aurivo in fifth place on 29.11p/litre.
Lakeland is in sixth place on 28.98p/litre, down from second place last month. The main reason for its lower league position is due to the decision to hold base on 26.5p/litre, putting it 0.5p to 2p/litre behind most of its competitors.
LacPatrick is in seventh place, with Strathroy at the bottom of the table on 27.3p/litre.
Average quality
Moving to average-quality milk, across all buyers the price came to 27.62p/litre. For the individual processors, there is no change to the league positions when comparing average-quality with good-quality milk.
Dale Farm remains on top, paying 28.98p/litre, followed by Glanbia Cheese on 28.03p/litre.
12-month rolling average
Table C shows the average price paid by each processor over the last 12-month period, based on a dairy farmer producing 1m litres annually.
On good-quality milk, the average across all processors to June 2018 was 30.93p/litre, which is 0.04p/lower than the corresponding price for the 12-month period ending May 2018.
For the first time in our monthly milk leagues, Dale Farm has moved to the top of the rolling 12-month league table for good-quality milk.
Lakeland, which previously held the top position, has slipped to second place, although it is just 0.02p/litre short of the Dale Farm price.
Both processors also command the same league positions for average-quality milk, with Dale Farm now topping this analysis for the second successive month.
Ends
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