ESL strong in Austrian organic milk sector
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The trend towards regional and organic products remains strong in Austria, with 2% or 12.2 million kg more organic milk than in 2020. A total of 147.7 million kg of organic drinking milk was produced last year in the country, according to the AMA.
The largest share was in extended shelf life (ESL) types with a fat content of 3.5% and above. Around 69.6 million kg of this variety were produced, which means a production increase of 5.7% or 3.8 million kg compared to 2020.
For pasteurised organic drinking milk (fresh milk) with a fat content of 3.5%, production shrank from 25.6 million kg to 21.2 million kg.
The general trend away from fresh milk production towards ESL milk production continues unabated. The same trend towards ESL can be observed in the organic cream and cream products category. A total of 8.4 million kg of organic sweet cream and organic sour cream were produced.
In the case of pasteurised organic sweet cream with a fat content of more than 29%, a sharp drop in production (-29%) can be observed, whereas organic sweet cream ESL with over 29% fat content recorded a strong increase in production (+ 42.5%).
The yogurt and acidified products made from organic milk also recorded an increase in production (+4%) compared to 2020 and thus amounted to 35.8 million kg in 2021.
Kefir was once again particularly popular. Production growth was 10.4% and the total volume of kefir production last year was 4.5 million kg.
The production of organic cheese was 2.8 million kg or 10.1% higher than the amount produced in 2020. Last year 30.8 million kg of organic cheese was produced.
A particularly strong increase in production was observed for organic raw milk mountain cheese. Here the increase was 1.2 million kg or 44.3%.
