The consumption of milk and dairy products in Ukraine during 2022 decreased by 28% due to the migration of the main consumers of women and children abroad, as well as a decrease in the purchasing power of the population against the background of the war, said the head of the project “Wholesale milk sales” Elena Zhupinas at a briefing of the Association of milk producers (AMP).
“Since 2019, there has been a positive trend in the consumption of milk and whole-milk products in Ukraine. However, in February 2022 the consumption of all categories of products, including hard cheese, fell rapidly: from 18% to 20% – due to migration of the population and occupation, another 5-8% – due to inflation and from 3 to 5% – due to other factors that negatively affected purchasing power,” – her words in a message on the website of the analytical agency milkua.info on Thursday.
According to the expert, processing enterprises due to the fear of reduction of milk production during winter and in March 2023 tried to restrain prices for raw milk and hoped that the market situation would change, that people would come back and consumption of dairy products would increase. In April, however, they had to cut prices.
“Today there is a situation in the domestic market where consumption is falling, but imports of products are growing,” stated Župinas.
As reported, oversupply of production, high price of finished products and recession led to excessive accumulation of finished dairy products in the warehouses of EU countries. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food together with the APM developed a number of amendments to the industry legislation and prepared a “Roadmap for Dairy Industry Recovery” in order to solve the problems of the dairy industry.
