For the first time since October 2019, West of Ireland-based Aurivo Co-op is at the top of the NI milk league, having paid a leading price of 43.43p/l for milk produced in May.

The May milk league calculates the price paid to a producer with 750,000l of annual supply on alternate day collection, using official milk constituent values recorded by DAERA for the same month in 2024. Back then butterfat averaged 4.10%, with protein at 3.26%, SCC of 188 and TBC of 23.

May is typically the month of peak supply in NI, but with higher output comes lower milk solids. In particular, butterfat takes a hit and is down from the 4.27% used in our April calculations.

With butterfat and protein moving closer to the base levels used by processors, it means that the starting price before adjustments for milk quality is the main determinant of milk league position.

Aurivo paid from the highest base price in May of 42.1p/l and the co-op has now kept that unchanged since November 2024. Base prices at all the other processors are down by 1p/l since then.

In the case of Tirlán / Fivemiletown and Strathroy, 1p/l came off in May, following a consistent run, which saw base prices hold since last September and August respectively. Leprino also took 1p/l off its base price for May milk.

As a result, all three processors dropped down our league, with Leprino moving from third to fourth and Strathroy from fifth to sixth. Tirlán is down to third, having led our main milk league analysis for the first four months of 2025.

Dale Farm is moving in the opposite direction and up to second, with a final price of 42.68p/l. NI’s largest co-op did hold its base unchanged at 41.8p/l, but lower solids take over 0.8p/l off its price when compared to April 2025.

That leaves Lakeland, which is off the bottom of the table after the co-op decided to hold base price at 39.8p/l, but added in a 0.5p/l “unconditional bonus” for May milk.

Rolling price

Also shown in our main milk league analysis is the rolling average price paid to a 750,000l supplier by each processor from June 2024 to May 2025.

Tirlán continues to lead with an average price of 44.29p/l, however, the gap to Dale Farm is now only 0.12p/l, while Aurivo has also closed to within 0.39p of the lead set by Tirlán. All positions are unchanged from our April analysis.

Payout

Shown in Figure 1 is an estimate of the pay-out made by each processor in May to a 750,000l producer, based on the actual milk solids recorded by each company.

With the highest base price, Aurivo is in the lead, however, Tirlán has the best milk solids, so it is second and ahead of Dale Farm in third.