Romania ranked last in the European Union in terms of cow’s milk production, followed by Bulgaria, according to data from the European Statistics Office (Eurostat).
Romania and Bulgaria are on the last places in the EU in the production of cow’s milk Photo: Pixabay
European Union raw milk production is estimated at 160 million tonnes in 2022, which would represent an annual decrease of 0.3 million tonnes, even though milk production per cow continued to rise last year, reaching 7,653 kilograms of milk.
Among the member states, milk production per cow is the highest in Denmark (10,187 kilograms) and Estonia (10,128 kilograms) and the lowest in Bulgaria (3,621 kilograms) and Romania (3,367 kilograms).
Most of the European Union’s raw milk production was delivered to dairies last year and only 9.8 million tonnes were used by farmers, being either consumed by the farmer and his family, or sold directly to consumers, or used as food or processed directly. Of the 149.9 million tons of milk delivered to dairy factories last year, 145.6 million tons were cow’s milk, the rest from sheep, goat or buffalo.
Among other products, dairy factories last year produced 22.5 million tons of consumer cow’s milk, 7.7 million tons of fermented milk that required six million tons of whole milk and 1.7 million tons of skimmed milk , 2.3 million tonnes of butter which required 46.4 million tonnes of whole milk and 10.4 million tonnes of cheese which required 59.2 million tonnes of whole milk and 16.9 million tonnes of milk degreased Together, cheese and butter production used 70% of the entire amount of milk available to dairy factories in the EU.
Among EU member states, Germany was last year the largest producer of consumer cow’s milk (19% of the EU total), butter (20%), fermented milk products such as yogurt (29%) and cheese (22%). France was the second largest producer of both butter and cheese (18% of the total for each product).
Together, Germany, Spain, France, Poland and Italy are responsible for two-thirds of the drinking cow’s milk produced in the EU last year, the Netherlands is the second largest producer of fermented milk, the fourth of cheese and the fifth of butter, while Ireland is the third largest producer of butter, and the fifth of fermented milk.
