GERMANY – Last year the German butter industry halted its butter consumption slide for the first time since the mid-nineties, recording per capita consumption of around 6.5kg.

Now, food marketing and price recording centre ZMP has announced that butter consumption will probably remain at this level in 2003 too.

The news is made more encouraging for the dairy industry by the fact that margarine sales have continued to fall, despite prices being up to 300% cheaper than butter at the end of last year.

For 2003, it is estimated that per capita consumption of vegetable oil-based margarines will be down by around 6kg. That is despite an average price of 58 euro cents per 500g tub, compared to butter, which averages at