EU data for the first 4 months of this year show that Europe is interested in Ukrainian butter. Firstly, due to its price. The 2017 quota (900 + 900 = 1800 tons) has been already used up. Based on the annual volumes, our 1.8 thousand tons make up about 10-20% of European imports of butter, displacing the US, which significantly increases domestic consumption of the product and therefore its imports. New Zealand (Fonterra) is the undisputed leader in export of butter.

Generally, the leap from 4 tons in 2013 to 14 thousand tons in 2017 in total exports of butter, i.e. three and a half times (INFAGRO forecast), confirms that butter has become one of the key Ukrainian foreign dairy trade products driving the overall market, including the raw materials one.

This week in Kiev we spoke to Martin Bates, GM Fonterra. He mentioned interesting facts about the history of New Zealand’s dairy exports. For example, after the World War II until the early 70’s 100% of the New Zealand dairy products were exported to the UK only. A few decades ago, exports of butter to China was zero, and in 2016 it became 70 thousand tons!

Despite the modest volume of its foreign butter sales, Ukraine now holds the 5th place following New Zealand, EU, USA and Belarus. The price of Ukrainian butter is currently much more attractive than that of our leading competitors (considering the stocks in NZ and EU are at their minimum). In the long term, it is necessary to achieve sales to stable markets with high purchasing power and also try direct sales.