21 September 2010

1 minute read

Europe

Data for 52 weeks ending 8 Aug 2010 shows low-fat milk at 311m litres, an increase of 166m litres over the previous year. This gives the category a 6.6 per cent share of the retail market compared to 3.2 per cent for the same period last year. Low-fat milk has gained some market share at the expense of the three other categories.

With low-fat milk doubling its market share, the amount of butterfat required for the retail liquid milk market has fallen from an average of 1.85 per cent per litre in August 2009 to 1.82 per cent per litre in August 2010.

This means that the equivalent of around 4,000 tonnes of additional cream would have been made by liquid milk processors as a direct result of this change in the pattern of liquid milk consumption. This represents only 1.6 oer cent of the UK production and would therefore have only a minor impact on the market for bulk cream. The change in the butterfat percentage at the farmgate level, of which the annual rolling average fell by 0.07 percentage point to 3.97 per cent between the August 09 and August 10, would have had a greater impact.

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