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After a run of nearly four years, Tirlán no longer leads in any of our analyses of prices paid to farmers supplying 1m litres of milk.
October is the second consecutive month that all milk processors opted to leave base prices unchanged.
However, with winter bonus payments coming into effect at some processors, it means there is a 5p/l gap from the highest starting price at Dale Farm to the lowest at Tirlán/Fivemiletown.
Shown in Table B is the October analyses of prices paid to 1m-litre suppliers across high, average and low solids milk, with the values for each quality outlined in Table 1 on the opposite page. For high solids milk, prices across all processors averaged 33.35p/l, up from 31.47p/l in September, with Dale Farm finishing first for the third month in a row with a price of 35.85p/l.
Aurivo climbs one place to second with Strathroy dropping down to third. Leprino Foods moves up to fourth, swapping places with Tirlán which is now fifth, ahead of Lakeland Dairies in sixth.
Average solids
Moving to average milk solids, which is a good indicator of prices paid to most dairy farms across NI, prices across all processors averaged 32.63p/l, up from 30.76p/l in September.
Dale Farm finishes out in front on 35p/l and over 1.3p/l ahead of second placed Aurivo, with a gap of more than 4p to Tirlán and Lakeland at the foot of the table.
Rolling 12 months
Over the 12-month period ending October 2023, Dale farm has overtaken Tirlán to top the table for high and average solids milk.
It is the first time since October 2021 that Tirlán has not led the rolling average table for high solids milk, while for average solids milk, it ends a 47-month table-topping run, which began in December 2019.
In the analysis for both high and average solids milk, Strathroy remains in third, with Aurivo in fourth, followed by Leprino Foods and Lakeland. Strathroy continues to lead on rolling prices paid for low solids milk.
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