Tirlán/Fivemiletown has continued to pay the highest prices to 1m-litre suppliers in NI, but behind the top spot there are a number of positional changes when compared to our January league.

The February prices shown in Table B are calculated across three milk qualities as outlined in Table 1 on the opposite page.

Those milk qualities are down marginally on the previous month, in line with actual results reported to us by each processor.

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For average solids milk, Tirlán leads with a final price of 37.61p/l, which is over 3p/l ahead of Strathroy in second and 3.7p/l above Lakeland in third.

In January, Strathroy and Lakeland finished in fourth and fifth places respectively. However, along with Tirlán, they are the only three processors to pay a 3p/l winter bonus on February milk.

Aurivo has a 2p winter bonus in February, which helps the co-op move up from sixth to fourth and ahead of both Dale Farm and Leprino Foods – neither company offers winter support payments on February milk. It is a similar picture for prices across both high and low solids milk – Tirlán are out in front, ahead of Strathroy and Lakeland.

At the foot of the table, all three milk qualities are eligible to receive Leprino’s 0.75p/l mozzarella bonus, which helps keep Leprino prices closely matched to Dale Farm.

Rolling averages

Despite the positional changes seen in February, there are no changes to the rankings for rolling prices between March 2025 and February 2026 across both average and high solids milk (see Table C).

For average solids milk, the 0.75p/l 13th payment from Dale Farm, which has been factored into the co-op’s prices from April 2025 onwards, has helped to close the gap to Tirlán to 0.35p/l.

On low solids milk, the only positional change sees Lakeland moving ahead of Leprino Foods into fourth.

Rolling average prices are generally down by around 1p/l when compared to the January league, given that prices of around 46p/l from February 2025 have dropped out of the 12-month analysis.