The rise, effective from January 1, means farmers will now be paid $7.95c/kg MS from January 1 to June 30.

“ADFC will continue to monitor our returns for the remainder of the season to ensure any additional value is returned to our suppliers,” general manager Andrew Sutton said.

“Being a co-op we have to return our profits back to our shareholders/suppliers and that’s the position we are in.

“We thought we would announce it now, rather than wait, it was always planned.”

Mr Sutton said the decision was flagged at the Christmas meeting.

Due to the Dairy Code of Conduct, ADFC could not recruit any more suppliers until the new milk year.

“Everybody is looking for milk,” Mr Sutton said.

“We have had a few suppliers leave, as they exited the industry, which everyone has.

“We need to replace those, at least.”

ADFC supplies yoghurt maker Chobani as well as Procal.

Mr Sutton said ADFC had a good spread of suppliers, across all Victoria’s dairying region.

“We have extremely low overheads, so all the returns we receive go back to our suppliers,” he said

“We notice New Zealand reviewed their pricing, at this stage all the signs are positive for 2023.”