More cheese eaten in Switzerland with less butter to spare

Cheese consumption in Switzerland rose by 1.2% in 2019. Sliced and hard cheeses in particular sold well.

The Swiss per capita consumption of cheese last year was 22kg, which is 1.2% more than in 2018. A total of 189,310 tons of Swiss and foreign cheese were sold, which is 3,510 tons or 1.9% more than in 2018. Fresh, sliced and hard cheese had the largest share of total consumption. Together they amounted to 17.86 kg. Around two-thirds of domestic purchases are for Swiss cheeses.

Meanwhile, there is currently significantly less butter in stock in Switzerland than in previous years. According to the butter industry organisation, this year’s production will not be enough to meet domestic demand. As an example of the shortage, in calendar week 12 there were 575 tons of butter in stock. Last year it was 2,835 tons in the same week and in 2018 there was 3,901 tons.

The main reason for the low butter production is that more milk from the industrial sector goes into cheese production. As an incentive to add more milk fat to butter production, the industry organisation has increases the internal target price for cream in July by 60 rappen per kg fat, but still there will still be shortfalls that must be covered with imported fat. The last major butter imports took place in 2007. Switzerland produced a total of 45,000 tons of butter in 2019.