LacPatrick Dairies has announced its decision to lower its milk price for October supplies following a meeting of the co-op’s board earlier today (Tuesday, November 20).

Suppliers in the Republic of Ireland will receive a price of 31c/L including VAT for milk supplied in October; down 1c/L from the price paid for September supplies.

Suppliers in Northern Ireland will receive a price of 26.5p/L for milk supplied in October, which is down 1p/L on last month.

Commenting on the October milk price, LacPatrick Dairies chairman Andrew McConkey said:

ā€œThe board and management of LacPatrick are committed to running the LacPatrick business in a profitable and sustainable manner.

“The co-op must return the maximum milk price to our farmer suppliers and this can only be done by being as efficient as possible.

We are now very much in the midst of a severe downturn in the dairy markets which is on a par with 2016. The business we operate must reflect the realities of the market.

ā€œWe will continue to closely monitor the market in order to return the maximum possible price back to our farmers,ā€ he said.

GDT drops again

The latest Global Dairy Trade (GDT) index has taken yet another hefty blow at its most recent auction ā€“ event 224 ā€“ which concluded with the GDT Price Index down 3.5%.

This marks the seventh consecutive fall in index for the milk price indicator.

Lasting two hours and four minutes, 170 bidders participated across 15 rounds with a total of 143 emerging with winning bids.

A total of 42,966MT of product were sold at todayā€™s auction.