Significant decline in Dutch butter production

In the first 10 months of this year, 105.000 tons of butter were produced in our country, which is a decrease of 6,3% compared to the same period last year. An increase in butter production is visible across Europe. In the first 3 quarters, volume increased by just under 2% to 1,7 million tons. In particular, major products such as Ireland and Poland increased butter production sharply.

Cheese production on the rise 
The decline in production in our country is in any case not due to the availability of milk, because the Dutch supply is ahead of last year. Declining butter production has been a trend for some time, as production also showed a decline last year. Cheese production has shown a significant increase this year of 4,5% to 802.000 tons, partly due to additional production capacity in our country. Milk powder production also increased significantly, with skimmed production increasing by 12% to just under 60.000 tons.

Impediments 
The factors that are likely to further slow down butter production are the high stocks in Europe, partly in intervention as a result of the corona crisis. This hinders the view of price recovery in the medium term. In addition, the price of cream has been (too) high all year round to enable profitable butter production. Cream is a popular raw material for the fresh segment, partly due to the higher retail demand this year. The good retail demand is also reflected in the production of drinking milk products, which increased by about 10% to 3 tons over the first 887.000 months.