The board of Lakeland Dairies has increased the co-operative’s milk price for August. In Northern Ireland, Lakeland Dairies has increased its milk price for August by 0.3p/L to 29.5p/L. In the Republic of Ireland, Lakeland Dairies has increased its base milk price for August by 0.5c/L to 36.5c/L, including VAT, for milk at 3.6% fat and 3.3% protein. According to the co-op, there continues to be a reasonable level of balance between supply and demand in the global dairy markets at present, with some fluctuations due to the effects of the ongoing pandemic. Lakeland Dairies says it will continue to monitor the mar­ket closely in the coming weeks.

Global milk price

Last week, the Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index recorded a strong second lift in index, marking back-to-back increases in its latest auction, following on from eight consecutive index falls.

The most recent tender – event 291 – concluded onTuesday, September 7, with the GDT Price Index up 4%.

Lasting two hours and 21 minutes, the event saw 187 participating bidders take part across 16 bidding rounds, with 114 winning bidders emerging. A total of 25,093MT of product was sold on the day.

In what was a strong performance across the board for all products offered on the day, skim milk powder (SMP) saw the largest increase in index, rising by 7.3%, with lactose just behind, lifting by 6.4%.

Butter and cheese also saw index increases of 3.7% and 3.6% respectively, with whole milk powder (WMP) and anhydrous milk fat (AMF) on the up as well, by 3.3% and 3.1% in index respectively.