For the ninth month in a row Tirlán/Fivemiletown is at the top of our league of milk prices paid to dairy farmers in NI.

Having been just over 1p ahead of the chasing pack in our June analysis, that gap has now widened out to nearly 1.6p/l, after the co-op held at a starting point of 31.7p/l, but added in a “weather related payment” of 0.85p/l on milk produced during June, July and August. The 0.85p/l payment on June litres was included along with the July milk cheque.

Once adjustments are made for milk quality, Tirlán paid 35.04p/l to a typical 750,000l producer, supplying milk during July in line with the NI production curve.

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That Tirlán price is expected to remain over 35p/l for August milk, given the co-op’s recent move towards giving a three-month commitment on milk pricing.

Compare

To compare returns, we use the actual milk qualities recorded by DAERA in the same month of the previous year, when butterfat averaged 4.13%, protein was 3.34%, with SCC of 217 and TBC at 23.

Both butterfat and protein are very similar to June (4.14% and 3.33% respectively), however, for the first time this year, SCC has pushed over 200 and this means SCC bonuses of 0.2 to 0.4p/l drop out in all cases.

Behind Tirlán, Dale Farm is back up to second place, having been placed third in the June league. The NI co-op added 0.5p to its base taking it to 30.8p/l inclusive of a 0.3p/l loyalty payment and retained a 1.5p “market support” payment on July milk, leaving its starting price at 32.3p/l.

Dale Farm also adjusted payment increments on butterfat and protein to encourage farmers to produce higher protein milk. These latest increments apply for the three months from 1 June, with the value of each 0.01% change in butterfat above or below 3.95% reduced from 0.037p to 0.032p/l, while each 0.01% change in protein above or below 3.24% increased from 0.061p to 0.067p/l.

At the average milk quality used in our July league, these changes had a slightly negative impact on the final Dale Farm price, which would have been 33.46p using the previous values.

Outside of the top two, Aurivo is in third after it held its June base price of 31.5p/l unchanged for July milk.

Lakeland was placed at the bottom of the June league, but is now up to fourth after it increased its base price by 0.8p, taking it to 30.9p/l. In addition, Lakeland volume bonuses have returned to standard values after a 50% reduction was applied between April and June. However, its final July price is still only up by 0.19p partly because a 0.5p “market support payment”, on all litres across the first six months of the year, was factored into the June analysis. Moving in the opposite direction to Lakeland is Leprino. As well as a 0.4p/l SCC bonus dropping out, Leprino’s mozzarella bonus of 0.75p/l is not paid when milk goes above SCC of 200.

Rolling average

Shown alongside our main 750,000l analysis are the rolling average prices paid by each processor over the 12-month period from August 2025 to July 2026. At the top of the table, Tirlán is now the only processor with a rolling price over 36p and the gap to Dale Farm in second has widened out to over 1p/l. At the other end of the table, Strathroy is up to fifth and ahead of Leprino after the Omagh-based processor confirmed it has made a 0.5p/l back payment on all litres from suppliers across the first six months of the year. This back payment has been factored into our rolling prices.

Payout

Included in Figure 1 are the milk qualities reported to us by each processor for July milk, along with our estimate of the actual payout made by each company to a typical 750,000l supplier in that month. With good solids and the highest prices paid, Tirlán is well ahead of the rest.