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The UK and Irish market, read from the outside in.

Overseas businesses and investors looking at UK and Ireland

Overseas businesses and investors. How the UK and Irish trade moves, what buyers respond to, the specialists who get you in, and the forums where you meet the market in one day.

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What matters now

What is changing in the UK and Irish market.

Market

Cheddar rises 9% in a month and still trails the milk price

What changed
Mild Cheddar gained £270 a tonne in September, more than any other product AHDB tracks, and cheese is back above butter and powder at the factory gate.
Why it matters
The October milk price rises were announced weeks before that figure was published, and AHDB says Cheddar prices remain too low to cover them.
What to watch
Whether November milk price announcements move again before the next AHDB wholesale assessment, and whether contract cheese prices follow the spot trades.

Members · Analysis · 29 September 2026

Report

The Next Plate

What changed
What Mars and the major dairy companies say comes next for food and nutrition, and where dairy fits. A Dairy Connect Research report.
Why it matters
The dairy majors have built their plans on protein while Mars has moved on to fibre, AI and the solo meal; none of them has yet made the meal for one, and especially the older one, a dairy occasion, and that is the opening for UK and Irish dairy.

Report · 28 October 2026

Analysis

What happens to the Christmas cheeseboard in January

What changed
Premium ranges are putting more farmhouse cheese into the festive basket in the UK and Ireland. Whether Christmas grows choice on the shelf depends on what the shopper can find again in the new year.
Why it matters
Christmas puts more farmhouse cheese in front of supermarket shoppers, but whether it grows choice depends on whether they can find and recognise the same cheese in January, and nobody publishes the repeat-purchase figure that would show it.

Analysis · 27 October 2026

Intelligence

Trade, markets and market entry.

Independent pieces on trade and export, market prices, ownership and policy. Filter by topic.

Members · Analysis · 10 min read

Cheddar rises 9% in a month and still trails the milk price

Mild Cheddar rose 9% in September, taking a litre made into Cheddar and whey to 39.08 pence and putting cheese back above butter and powder at the factory gate, but the October milk price rises were announced weeks before that figure was published, and AHDB says Cheddar prices remain too low to cover them.

29 September 2026

Close-up of a screen showing volatile red and green financial trend lines

Members · Analysis · 4 min read

2026 the volatility year

2026 will not be the recovery year the sector expected but the year that resets it, splitting shoppers into clearer tiers and leaving mainstream Cheddar the most exposed.

27 April 2026

An empty white plate with a knife and fork on a bright orange table

Members · Report · 15 min read

The Next Plate

The dairy majors have built their plans on protein while Mars has moved on to fibre, AI and the solo meal; none of them has yet made the meal for one, and especially the older one, a dairy occasion, and that is the opening for UK and Irish dairy.

28 October 2026

A cheeseboard of British farmhouse cheeses, including a blue, a Red Leicester and a clothbound hard cheese, with figs and grapes

Members · Analysis · 5 min read

What happens to the Christmas cheeseboard in January

Christmas puts more farmhouse cheese in front of supermarket shoppers, but whether it grows choice depends on whether they can find and recognise the same cheese in January, and nobody publishes the repeat-purchase figure that would show it.

27 October 2026

A group of older friends laughing together over their smartphones

Members · Report · 37 min read

The Longevity Economy

The opportunity is not a product labelled for older people but a portfolio redesigned around the nutritional, functional and experiential needs of longer lives, with value growth more plausible than broad volume growth.

19 October 2026

A small serving of natural yoghurt with granola and berries on a wide white plate

Members · Analysis · 6 min read

After protein: the smaller plate and dairy's fibre gap

Fibre is the first claim in this cycle that dairy cannot make from milk alone: only 4% of UK adults eat the recommended 30g a day, plain dairy carries no meaningful fibre, and dairy's own candidate, GOS, is neither a settled fibre claim in GB nor still made in Britain at scale, so a business that wants the claim in 2027 has to start the recipe and evidence work now.

13 October 2026

The Protein Plant

Members · Report · 17 min read

The Protein Plant

The finding that matters most for boards is about information, not plant: Britain publishes a value for whey sold as powder but none for whey fractionated into concentrates, isolates and specialised proteins, and a board cannot compare a route it cannot price.

7 October 2026

A supermarket chiller of cheese, yoghurts and protein yoghurts, with shelf price labels

Members · Report · 10 min read

The Unclaimed Protein

The Protein Series settled where the protein market is going; the decisions it leaves a dairy business are where to compete on the price ladder, which claim a formulation can legally carry, which of four positions to take, and how to tell whether it is working.

5 October 2026

Curds separating from whey around steel cutting blades in a cheesemaking vat

Members · Analysis · 4 min read

Acid whey is not the problem. The business model is.

Acid whey is a business-model failure, not a technical one; the value is real but stranded until processors design for a saleable co-product rather than a disposal problem.

18 August 2026

Chunks of crumbled white feta cheese on a blue-grey plate

Members · Analysis · 3 min read

FETA PDO: provenance the buyer can verify

With speciality cheese outgrowing the category and feta supply tightening, buyers should secure genuine PDO product early rather than treat it as a commodity.

19 June 2026

Woman scooping chocolate protein powder from a tub beside a measuring shaker

Members · Analysis · 11 min read

The whey forward 2026/27

UK and Irish producers who commit whey-processing capex before 2028 will capture premium margin for a decade, while those still exporting raw whey watch the value accrue elsewhere.

24 April 2026

Wegovy injectable weight-loss pen lying on a plain white surface

Members · Analysis · 6 min read

GLP-1, protein and dairy's opportunity

As GLP-1 users prioritise nutritional density, dairy's high-quality protein becomes a real advantage if the sector repositions its messaging.

13 March 2026

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Expertise

Specialists for entering the UK and Ireland.

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Events

Is this worth your time?

Cork · 3 & 4 March 2027

Dairy Forum Ireland

Relevant to

Technical & Processing, Leadership & Strategy, Commercial & Sales, Artisan & SME

Why attend

How do we create more value from dairy? Twelve speakers follow milk from the farm to the market, each session closing on a chaired industry challenge. Opens with an evening of cheese and whiskey.

View programmeWho’s it for?Get your free ticket

London · October 2027

Dairy Forum London

Relevant to

Leadership & Strategy, Commercial & Sales, Marketing & Brand, Retail & Foodservice

Why attend

One evening, one panel, five questions. The things the industry keeps arguing about, put to the people who decide them.

View programmeWho’s it for?Register interest

GROW by Dairy Connect

When a distributor is interested and you have no UK offer yet.

GROW's export market readiness work tests your offer against what UK and Irish buyers actually respond to, before anyone commits to volume.

GROW

Export market readiness

Prepare the product and business for entry into UK and EU markets, including positioning, documentation, commercial expectations and route-to-market planning.

GROW

Market readiness

Test whether the product, pricing, packaging, capacity and commercial model are ready for the opportunity the business wants to pursue.

GROW

Brand and proposition

Build a clear position around the product's quality, provenance, purpose and value, then turn it into messaging, content and market-facing activity.

How GROW works

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