Increased demand for cheese and fresh dairy products against a background of static milk throughput in dairy processing plants is likely to mean a firm dairy market in the European Union during 1998. Reduced production against unchanged demand will mean firmer prices for butter too.
These are the latest predictions from the German agricultural market agency ZMP. The improvement will come as a welcome break to the EU dairy industry after the reduction in export demand for major dairy products last year.
Cheese production in 1997 was expanded only in line with rising consumption on the internal EU market. Exports, however, declined, dampening the growth in production. Export trade proved especially difficult in traditional markets such as the US and Japan, says ZMP. On the other hand, the position of German cheese improved considerably in CIS countries.
ZMP puts deliveries to EU dairies at 113 million tonnes in 1998