Domestic supply is not enough
Tariff quota for butter imports will be increased again in January 2023
The Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG) has increased the tariff quota for butter by 3,000 tons for January 2023. According to industry estimates, the domestic butter supply will not be sufficient to fully cover demand in Switzerland next year either.
Switzerland will import more butter again in the coming year. (icon picture)
According to the milk industry organization, the total milk volume should remain low. Therefore, in addition to cheese production, there is not enough milk left over for butter production. The industry organization therefore submitted an application to the FOAG for an increase in the tariff quota.
This year, the FOAG has already released an additional 6,100 tonnes of butter for import in a quota. In the past two years, the tariff quota for butter has been increased by around 5,000 tons, as Stefan Kohler, managing director of the milk industry organization, explained at the request of the Keystone-SDA news agency.
In the first Corona year 2020, the butter market in Switzerland turned around. At that time, sales of cheese and butter increased very satisfactorily. But since the same amount of milk was produced, there was not enough milk for butter.
Due to the increasing number of vegetarians, cheese is also very popular. According to Kohler, after several years of cheese sales growing by around 5 percent, it is unclear whether growth in cheese exports will continue.
(SDA)