Across all milk buyers, Glanbia Cheese is the only company in NI to alter its August price, adding 0.5p/l to its base price, which has increased to 27.5p/l.

It means that all buyers are now working off a base of 27.5p/l, with the exception of Dale Farm, which remains 1p/l ahead at 28.5p/l, when its 0.3p/l loyalty bonus is added in.

Among those to announce an August price this week, LacPactrick confirmed it was holding at 27.5p/l, making it their second month at this price.

Aurivo also set its price early this week and has also left its base price unchanged, as have Strathroy Dairy, Lakeland Dairies, Glanbia Milk and Fivemiletown.

Full analysis on milk pricing will feature in next week’s NI milk league.

GDT

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s GDT auction saw the index price fall 1.3% to US $2,934/t, with butter, skim and whole milk powder all recording lower prices.

However, EU markets remain robust, reflected in the UFU milk price indicator (MPI) which rose by 0.39p/l to 29.29p/l.

Average price

The latest DAERA statistics show that NI farmgate milk prices averaged 28.09p/l in July, an increase of 0.57p/l on the June price.

This brings the average milk price for the period of January to July to 28.09p/l, compared with the average price of 26.64p/l for the same period last year.

Production

Milk production during July totalled 206.36m litres, up from 200.29m litres produced during July 2017.

Total milk produced over the first seven months of 2018 comes to 1.456bn litres, compared to the equivalent figure of 1.421bn litres for 2017.

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