The Association of Milk Producers in Portugal (APROLEP) has criticised the country’s supermarkets and hypermarkets for filling their shelves with imported products.
According to APROLEP, the retailers should stop saying that they support domestic production, while at the same time "importing the leftovers of Europe".
The milk producers argue that the members of APED (the Portuguese Association of Distribution Companies) can be the "solution" to the sector’s crisis by pledging to buy more milk and milk products of national origin at a sustainable price.
Although Portugal produced 3.5 per cent more milk in 2015, with production reaching 2 billion litres, the price paid to producers dropped by 16 per cent, according to data from the National Association of Dairy Industries (ANIL).
Contributing to the negative result were falling consumption, the Russian embargo on European products, and the end of the milk-quota system.
In recent weeks, Portuguese dairy farmers have organised several demonstrations in supermarkets to demand measures from the government and raise public awareness to the problems affecting the sector, asking consumers to buy domestic products.
Portuguese retailer Jerónimo Martins has since announced that its new milk plant in Portalegre, which will open in the first half of 2017, will triple current production to 90 million litres per year and "supply 100 per cent of the needs of the group in Portugal".
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Branislav Pekic. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
