Russian imports of dairy products lowered by 10%

In January 2021, Russian imports of dairy products appeared to be 10% lower compared to their level in 2020 for the same period and practically corresponded to the volume of imports in 2019.

577 thousand tons of dairy products worth USD 202.6 million (-25%) were imported. Such data is provided in the report by the National dairy Producers Union of Russia (Soyuzmoloko).

A decline in supply was observed for all product categories, except for cheese. Figures from January 2021 show that the main external suppliers of dairy products to Russia are the Republic of Belarus (75%), New Zealand (8%), Argentina (5%), Uruguay (4%) and Kyrgyzstan (2%). Whereas the Republic of Belarus’ volume increased by 14%, all other countries decreased their supplies of dairy products to Russia by 44%.

Belarus occupies a leading position in external supplies of most types of dairy products despite the steady volume of dairy imports from non-CIS countries. The Republic of Belarus supplies 86% of fluid milk and cream, 88% of skimmed milk powder (SMP), 94% of whole milk powder (WMP), 95% of fermented milk products, 89% of whey powder, 52% of butter, 91% of cheese, almost 100% of quark, 60% of ice cream. Cheese products are an exception here with Belarus supplying only 14% of the category’s Russian import.

The main dairy products imported by Russia in January 2021 remained cheeses (≈46% of imports in value terms), butter (22%), milk and cream, powdered and condensed (10%), including SMP (5%) and WMP (2%), fluid milk and cream (8%), fermented milk products (8%) and cheese products (5%). At the same time, in comparison with 2020, the share of cheese in the import structure has grown.