Tirlán/Fivemiletown has consolidated its position at the top of the NI milk league, having paid a leading price of 34.42p/l to a typical 750,000-litre producer for June supplies.

It is now the eighth month in a row that the co-op has led our league, with its final June price over 1p/l ahead of the chasing pack.

There will have to be some significant July price increases by competitors if they are to overtake Tirlán, given that the company has committed to holding its starting price of 31.7p for the remainder of the summer.

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The June league is calculated at the average milk quality notified to DAERA by processors in the same month in 2025, when butterfat stood at 4.14%, protein was 3.33%, with SCC of 195 and TBC at 23.

Both butterfat and protein are up by 0.01 percentage point on the May analysis, with solids starting to increase as we move past peak litres.

Behind Tirlán, Aurivo is in second with a final price of 33.33p/l.

Dale Farm drops from second to third, having been the only processor to pay less for milk in June than it did in the previous month.

The NI co-op did keep its base unchanged at 30.3p/l once a 0.3 loyalty payment is included, but a 2p/l ‘market support’ payment was reduced to 1.5p/l.

Once adjustments are made for milk quality and transport costs, the Dale Farm final price is down 0.42p/l.

Having been placed bottom last month, Leprino is up to fourth after the Magheralin-based company lifted its base by 1p/l – it was the largest price increase of any processor in June.

Strathroy slips from fourth to fifth, despite adding 0.5p to its base price, while Lakeland kept its base unchanged at 301.p/l and is bottom, with a final price paid of 32.25p/l.

That price includes a “market support payment” of 0.5p/l, adjusted for milk solids.

At the parameters used in our 750,000l league, it adds 0.52p/l.

Rolling prices

Also shown alongside our main milk league analysis is the rolling average price paid to a typical 750,000l producer over the 12-month period from July 2025 to June 2026.

Those rolling averages are generally down by around 0.8p/l month-on-month given that prices of around 42p/l from June 2025 have been removed from the calculation.

Tirlán is now the only processor with a 12-month average over 37p/l. Dale Farm remains second, ahead of Aurivo. Lakeland is fourth and has moved slightly further ahead of the bottom two places after its 0.5p/l support payment was factored in – that payment was made on all litres produced by suppliers from January to June 2026.

Payout

Figure 1 shows our best estimate of the actual payout made by each processor to a typical 750,000l supplier for June milk based on actual solids notified to us by each company. With a leading price paid and good solids, Tirlán has the highest monthly payout of £23,775.