It’s a great opportunity to showcase quality British products and seek new export opportunities, as the NFU’s chief dairy adviser Sian Davies found out when she attended the latest Dairy Exporters Forum hosted by DairyUK at the IFE.
She writes:
On dairy, we’re not doing too badly. UK dairy processors are exporting to over 135 countries worldwide although our main export destination is Ireland (liquid milk crossing the border). In the last calendar year dairy exports were up 8.8 per cent outperforming all other areas of food and drink. Dairy products actually make up 15 per cent of all food exports with cheese being the 3rd best food category.
After Ireland our main export destinations for dairy products are the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. This is unlikely to change much in future but Defra do want to focus on new markets outside the EU – and have pinpointed Canada, Australia, China, USA and Algeria as priority regions. With this in mind it was timely to have presentations from the China-Britain Business Council and UKTI’s office in New York.
China
The value of total UK dairy exports to China in 2014 was £24.2 million of which £9.5 million was in processed products and £7.2 million in unprocessed products. Going forward we need to look at what’s driving the Chinese population to consume dairy products. A recent survey showed that the four main drivers were:
1. An ageing population and a new baby boom (following a relaxation of the one child policy)
2. Urbanisation and a growth of the most high earning population
3. Healthy lifestyles
4. Domestic scandals, imports and competition (40 per cent market share is still held by Chinese companies)
The same survey showed that 49 per cent of the Chinese population were reluctant to buy milk following recent scandals. Positive news for us is that 57 per cent of the population agreed that imported milk is safer than domestic but less positive is that only a quarter believe it tastes better.
The outlook for cheese isn’t that positive with a third of the Chinese population believing it contains too much fat and another third not knowing how to best utilise it. There is no strong impression that cheese is nutritionally rich but it is considered energy boosting. Of main concern is that 44% of those surveyed couldn’t tell the difference between butter and cheese.
USA
Niall Gordon from UKTI joined the meeting to explain the UK Government’s focus in the US – the fastest growing developing country in terms of population. We all know that the US is the largest cow milk producer in the world with around 51,000 dairy farms and a surprisingly small average herd size of 115 cows. They’re big cheese consumers though with and average consumption of 15.1kg per capita in 2011 (the UK figure is 10.9kg). Yoghurt and Kefir consumption is growing at a rate of 200 per cent per year. UKTI’s focus going forward will be on beef – following the expected relaxation of BSE rules but dairy messages will also be included in the campaign.