Anatoly Losev: butter production will decrease by 1-2% in 2020
"The income of the population is not growing, and the price of butter continues to increase, according to my forecast, in 2020 it will increase by 5-7% with an increase in the price of raw milk. If there is no growth in the income of our consumers, the demand for butter will fall significantly, by 2-2. 5%", he said.
The businessman also noted that Russian butter has no export prospects. The price of raw materials – the main component of butter - in Russia is more than 25% higher than that of its nearest neighbor - Belarus.
"It is obvious that where milk is cheaper, all dairy products are cheaper, they will get a large share of the market", Anatoly Losev added.
Further prospects of the butter market, according to Anatoly Losev, will depend directly on how the state will deal with the problem of falsification. “Mercury”, which already has all the necessary information, which, unfortunately, is not used for its intended purpose, will help in this.
"If we don't do anything about falsification, the volume of natural butter will continue to decrease. Well, if the share of falsified products in the market decreases, the consumption of butter products and spreads will decline, and of natural butter will grow", Anatoly Losev said.
According to preliminary data from Rosstat (Rosstat, USDA), in January-October 2019, the production of butter in Russia decreased by 0.2% compared to the corresponding period of 2018 (to 219.3 thousand tons). At the same time, butter imports increased by 30.5% to 94 thousand tons, while exports decreased by 17.8%.