Lakeland Dairies has held its price for November milk at 36.5c/L including VAT and including a 1c/L butter bonus, the processor has announced.

This is the second consecutive month for Lakelands to hold its base price, having paid out 36.5c/L for September supplies also.

Other processors are set to reveal their milk prices for the eleventh month of this year in the coming days and weeks.

This news comes directly after the announcement that Ornua’s Purchase Price Index (PPI) has reduced slightly for the month of November, lowering to 115 for this month – down from 116.4 for October.

While still higher than September’s figure of 114.3, today’s announcement nonetheless brings an end to six consecutive monthly increases in 2017.

In spite of the slight decrease, the PPI still compares favourably to every month – bar last month – since September 2014.

Meanwhile, the most recent Global Dairy Trade (GDT) auction, Event 201, saw a slight recovery from the recent downward trend as the price index rose slightly by 0.4% on last month.

This slight reprieve in index price follows four consecutive decreases in recent GDT events, with sharp drops of 3.4% and 3.7% recorded during the month of November.

The most dramatic change seen on the day was undoubtedly the butter index, which fell by a severe 11.1%, while cheddar took a tumble of 4.3%.

Apart from these, other indexes showed largely positive moves, with skimmed milk powder (SMP) in particular rising by 4.7%.

Lactose (LAC) was not offered on the day.