Austria sees uptick in organic
In 2019, Austrian dairies were supplied with 584,974 tons of organic milk, according to Agrarmarkt Austria (AMA). The dairies and cheese factories processed 2.9% or 16,611 tons more organic milk than in 2018. The organic milk share of total delivery in 2019 corresponded to approximately 18.6% of the total Austrian milk delivery.
The share of organic products in total production in Austria has increased again compared to 2018, which can be seen from the most recent evaluations of the 2019 annual list for organic dairy products that the dairies and cheese dairies send to Agrarmarkt Austria every year. Austrian dairies and alpine dairies have increased organic production in almost all segments.
The drinking milk area particularly stands out. In this area, the production increased by more than 8% or 9.9 million kilograms. In particular, pasteurised drinking milk with a fat content of 3.5% and above was able to achieve a strong increase in production; the additional production compared to 2018 was an impressive 7.4 million kg.
The main production in the area of drinking milk is still the product drinking milk ESL (extended shelf life or also commonly known as “longer fresh”) with a fat content of 3.5% and above and in 2019 a total of 71.6 million kg were generated. Total production in the drinking milk area is 130m kg.
The category of acidified and sweet milk mix products saw a small increase in production of 1% compared to 2018 and is now slightly more than 35 million kg. Kefir in particular was very popular, with production in 2019 increasinh by more than 1 million kg to 3.4 million kg annually.
The production of butter and butter preparations recorded a substantial increase of 7.1%, amounting to 4.1 million kg. In the cheese and curd cheese division, production decreased by around 3.6% to 30.8 million kg in 2019. Sought-after cheeses Gouda and mountain cheese were among the losers in the organic sector compared to 2018.
