The value of the Irish dairy market has contracted by about €800 million in the last two years, with an abundance in global production, a stalling in export demands in China, and the Russian trade embargo holding back the sector, IrishTimes.com has reported.
The statistic comes from the Irish Cremary Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), which also noted that annual incomes have been eroded up by €35,000, and that sales values have shrunk by nearly 40 per cent since 2014 (€0.38 per litre of milk was paid in 2014, compared to the current €0.24 to €0.26 per litre).
The ICMSA says that it has struggled to “hear even a word on this crisis [from the Irish government] while we have endless discussions about the exact size of the fiscal space available for tax cuts that will only be slightly greater than the amount we’ve lost as a result of a falling milk price.”
Similary, French cheese giant Savencia Fromage & Dairy (formerly Bongrain) suffered a dip in turnover as a direct consequence of the Europe-wide dairy-price problem.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Peter Donnelly. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
