Even though it held its base price unchanged for January supplies, Tirlán/Fivemiletown is now over 2.6p/l ahead of its nearest rival at the top of the NI milk league.

The co-op kept its base at 29.9p/l, before a 3p winter bonus is added in. Adjusting for milk components, Tirlán paid a leading price of 36.51p/l to a typical NI producer in January supplying 750,000l annually at the NI average for milk quality.

That milk quality is taken from the same month in 2025, when data published by DAERA shows butterfat averaged 4.29%, with protein at 3.36%, TBC of 16 and SCC of 175.

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Compared to our December league, butterfat is down 0.07 percentage points and protein is down 0.04 points, so for those processors who held their base, the prices paid are generally back by around 0.5p/l.

However, as noted on page six, all processors, with the exception of Leprino Foods, have made changes to how they pay for milk from the start of 2026. In the case of Tirlán, higher incentives for SCC at or below 175, has effectively added 0.1p/l to its final price.

Second-placed Dale Farm was 2.1p behind Tirlán in December, but that gap has widened despite NI’s largest co-op deciding to keep its starting point unchanged at 31.3p/l when its 3p winter support payment is included.

The bigger gap is due to a change in payment increments for butterfat and protein from 1 January 2026. To reflect the value of milk solids in the current market, Dale Farm has reduced its payment for each 0.01% adjustment in butterfat from 0.041 to 0.034p/l and for protein, from 0.067 to 0.055p/l.

If those increments had remained unchanged, its January price would have been 34.25p/l, rather than 33.87p/l.

Also included in the Dale Farm analysis is the average payout of 0.68p/l to members under its milk production realignment scheme during January. That scheme pays farmers 4p/l for additional litres produced between August and January.

From Dale Farm in second down to Lakeland Dairies in fifth, the prices paid are closely matched, with Strathroy Dairies, Leprino Foods and Lakeland all paying more than they did in December.

Strathroy increased it base price by 1p taking it to 28.5p/l, while Leprino added 1.5p, leaving its base at 27p/l. Lakeland held its base at 26.3p/l, but announced a 1.75p/l “input support” payment on January supplies. All three processors also pay a 3p/l winter bonus in January.

That leaves Aurivo, which has slipped from third in December to the bottom of the table.

The co-op held its base price at 27.75p/l, but its winter bonus drops from 3p in December to 2p in January.

Rolling average

Also included in our main milk league analysis is the rolling average paid by each processor over the 12-months from February 2025 to January 2026.

There are no positional changes compared to last month, with Tirlán increasing its advantage over Dale Farm to 0.61p/l, with Aurivo a further 0.4p/l behind.

All the rolling averages are down by around 1p/l and that has taken the average below 40p for those in the bottom half of the table.

It is the first time we have recorded rolling average prices below 40p since the December 2024 league.

Payout

Shown in Figure 1 is an estimate of the payout made by each processor to a typical 750,000l producer for January supplies, based on the actual butterfat and protein recorded by each company.

With the highest price and highest solids, Tirlán is well ahead of the rest.