Cheese production in Russia will increase by 2% in 2017

This is slightly less than at the end of 2016, when volumes grew by 2.4% to 595 thousand tons.

According to the expert of the market of milk and dairy products of IKAR Vadim Semikin, in the future the development of the cheese market will depend on whether the food embargo is revoked. Indeed, in the case the borders are open a large volume of products which consumers will prefer for sure will instantly return on the market, he said.

According to IKAR, in 2016 the physical capacity of cheese amounted to 790 thousand tons, which is 5% less than in 2013 (840 thousand tons). "On this basis we can say that the market recovered and saturated, although it has suffered from the counter-sanctions more than others," — says Semikin. Prior to the embargo, the share of imported cheese in the total volume of the market reached 50%: for example, in 2013 412 thousand tons of cheese was imported to the country. In 2015, imports amounted to only 177 thousand tons. This circumstance was used by domestic producers, providing in the same year 17% increase in production (581 thousand tons against 495 thousand t in 2014).

In 2016, the volume of foreign supplies of cheese in the country increased by 10% (from 177 thousand tons to 195 thousand tons), and imports from countries outside the Eurasian economic Union decreased from 27 thousand tons to 22 thousand tons, while the countries of the Customs Union (primarily Belarus and Kazakhstan) has increased its share to 90%. According to Semikin, there are not any drivers for further rapid growth of the cheese market at the moment, since everything depends on the consumer demand, which over the past few years have declined because of falling incomes.

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