Currently, 16% of the UK's dairy is imported with 98% of these imports of EU origin. This trade with the UK constitutes 10% of the EU's total dairy exports with Ireland and France being the major exporters of dairy products to the UK. Looking at the UK's exports, 91% of UK dairy exports are destined to the EU.
In 1984, there was enough food produced in Britain to feed the nation for 306 days of the year. Today, that figure is 233 days, making 21 August 2020 the day that the country would run out of food if we were relying solely on British produce.
The UK has a highly successful agricultural industry, but many domestic and international factors affect food production and prices for consumers in the UK. The UK is not self-sufficient in food production; it imports 48% of the total food consumed and the proportion is rising.
Does the UK import flour? UK mills can produce enough flour to meet domestic requirements, but some flour is imported (approximately 1% of sales), often for provenance. France (around 20,000 tonnes per year) is the country of origin for the biggest proportion of flour imports.
We buy and sell over 450 million litres of milk a year – and we're proud to work with UK dairy farms to source our milk.
List by Food and Agriculture Organization
| Rank | Country | Ratio (%) |
|---|
| 1 | Norway | 50.1 |
| 2 | Belgium | 50.6 |
| 3 | Haiti | 51.0 |
| 4 | Somalia | 52.4 |
During 2019, imports of cheese were worth 1.73 billion British pounds. Cheese exports show a similar trend with an increase of 118 tons seen between 2003 to 2019. As of 2015, the biggest share of exported cheese goes to the Republic of Ireland.
In 2019, the value of these exports came to €41 billion. In 2019, a significant share of the UK agri-food imports came from the EU (74%), Dairy products, food preparations and meat products accounted for the highest share of agri-food products that the UK imported from the EU (as % of total UK agri-food imports).
You don't export fresh milk. It doesn't make any sense. Received wisdom is it's too heavy and bulky and goes off too quickly. Instead your only option is to take milk and then turn it into products that are much easier to send oversees like cheese, milk powder or butter.
The leading foreign supplier of
food consumed in the
UK were countries from the EU (26%). Africa, Asia, North and South America each provided a 4% share of the
food consumed in the
UK.
3.1 Origins of food consumed in the UK 2019.
| Region | Percentage supplied to the UK |
|---|
| UKa | 55% |
| EU | 26% |
| Africa | 4% |
| North America | 4% |
In value terms, cheese is the most significant export product for the UK dairy sector. The UK on average (2013–2017) exported 150,000 tonnes per year, with a value of £495 million.
"Pasteurized Milk" ExplainedFirst developed by Louis Pasteur in 1864, pasteurization kills harmful organisms responsible for such diseases as listeriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, Q fever, and brucellosis.
The UK is a net importer of pig meat, currently importing around 60 per cent of all the pork it consumes. The volume of these imports stood at 968,000 tonnes in 2015. Import levels have fluctuated slightly over recent years – since falling back in 2012, they have been increasing steadily year on year.
Milk production occurs within the alveoli, which are grape-like clusters of cells within the breast. Once the milk is made, it is squeezed out through the alveoli into the milk ducts, which resemble highways. The ducts carry the milk through the breast.
Fresh milk (Pixabay) Worldwide purchases of imported milk totaled an estimated US$29.4 billion in 2019. Overall, the value of milk imports increased by 8.8% for all importer countries since 2015 when import purchases of milk were valued at $27 billion.
India is the world's largest milk producer, with 22 percent of global production, followed by the United States of America, China, Pakistan and Brazil.
Top Milk Producing Countries In The World
- USA (91.3 billion kilograms)
- India (60.6 billion kilograms)
- China (35.7 billion kilograms)
- Brazil (34.3 billion kilograms)
- Germany (31.1 billion kilograms)
- Russia (30.3 billion kilograms)
- France (23.7 billion kilograms)
- New Zealand (18.9 billion kilograms)
Top world dairy companies
| Rank | Company | Market share of world milk production |
|---|
| 1 | Dairy Farmers of America | 3.4% |
| 2 | Fonterra | 2.6% |
| 3 | Groupe Lactalis | 2.4% |
| 4 | Arla Foods | 1.6% |
In China, the main sources of dairy imports are still concentrated in New Zealand, Australia, EU countries and the United States. New Zealand is still the largest source of Chinese dairy products imports. Germany has gradually become China's first source of imported liquid milk.
In 2019, China exported approximately 2.02 billion U.S. dollars' worth of tea, making it the leading exporter of tea worldwide. Other major tea exporters included Kenya and India that year.
Skimmed milk powder, casein products, butter, ghee, cheese, cream and curd are the several kinds of milk products that are exported by India. Turkey, UAE, Egypt, Bangladesh and Bhutan are the major markets for India's dairy exports.
Whereas a beef-suckler cow would naturally produce around 4 litres of milk per day, a dairy cow will produce an average of 28 litres per day over a period of 10 months. During peak lactation, a high-yielding cow may produce as much as 60 litres per day and up to 12,000 litres over her whole lactation.
Britain does not produce enough milk to keep up with demand, creating a dependency on the EU, including on dairy-surplus countries such as Ireland, Germany, France, Belgium and Denmark for everyday items such as cheddar cheese and butter.
1. Milk production expressed in Kg per animal and day.
In the 2014/15 milk year, the South West region produced over three billion litres of milk (3,346,926,074 litres), with Devon producing the largest volume, at 1,040,445,192 litres (Fig. 4).
We highlight ten of the top dairy producing countries here:
- USA (91.3 billion kilograms)
- India (60.6 billion kilograms)
- China (35.7 billion kilograms)
- Brazil (34.3 billion kilograms)
- Germany (31.1 billion kilograms)
- Russia (30.3 billion kilograms)
- France (23.7 billion kilograms)
- New Zealand (18.9 billion kilograms)
Morrisons, Aldi, Asda and Lidl buy their milk from farmers' co-operatives like Arla and First Milk. These co-ops are all paying lower prices to farmers.
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, the average milk production per cow in the United States in 2006 was 19,951 lb/cow, which is equivalent to 2,320 gallons per cow per year.
approximately 1.9 million animals
