As Ireland’s dairy industry continues to expand, our membership of the EU is playing an increasingly important role in where we sell our butter, cheese and milk powders. For 2019, dairy exports from the 28 member states of the EU to international markets are set to hit record volumes.

Based on figures from the European Commission’s Milk Market Observatory, dairy exports from the EU 28 for the first 10 months of 2019 (January-October) are running about 10% ahead of the same period in 2018.

Exports

This means EU dairy exports are likely to exceed 4.7m tonnes for 2019, or almost 400,000t ahead of 2018 exports. This strong performance in EU dairy exports has been driven by record shipments of butter, cheese, skimmed milk powder (SMP) and fresh dairy products such as milk and yoghurts to international markets. The only negative is lower exports of whole milk powder (WMP) and whey.

For the first 10 months of 2019, EU butter exports are up a whopping 36% year on year at just under 144,000t.

Butter

Ireland is now the largest butter exporter from Europe having shipped more than 43,000t in 2019, with the majority going to the US. EU cheese exports are up 5% at 732,000t, while SMP exports are up 26% year on year at 845,000t.

The flurry of trade deals that the EU has secured in recent years (Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Mexico and Canada) is facilitating increased exports from Europe and Irish dairy co-ops are benefitting from this.