LacPatrick co-op has announced that collection charges will not be applied to milk supplied in February on alternate-day collection.

With transport costing £8/load, this is a saving of £112 for suppliers, assuming 14 collections are made during February.

It is understood that all, bar 20-30 suppliers, will benefit from the move.

The decision was taken on Wednesday at what is likely to be the final board meeting of LacPatrick Co-op, as the merger with Lakeland is scheduled for completion on 13 March.

In addition, the board decided to hold its January milk price at 26.5p/l.

Elsewhere, Glanbia Cheese announced a 1p/l price increase for January which also puts it on 26.5p/l, and back into line with all other processors who are working from the same base price. Aurivo announced on Monday it is holding at 26.5p/l, but the west of Ireland-based processor still pays a 1p/l winter bonus for January.

All other processors declared their January price last week. Full analysis on January milk pricing will be featured in next week’s milk league.

GDT

Meanwhile, dairy commodity markets were boosted by another positive outcome at Tuesday’s GDT auction, where the index price increased by 0.9% to US $3,271/t. This converts to an approximate milk price of 32p/l (before applying processing costs).

It is the sixth successive GDT auction where prices have increased, with large gains for butter and skim milk powder. Milk powder prices also strengthened this week on the Dutch Dairy Board auctions, but butter prices eased.

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