Diversity and innovation the hallmark of Europe’s
thriving milk sector

With new flavours, luxury cheeses and speciality milks, the dairy industry in Europe is basing its marketing firmly on consumer demand – and Austria is leading the way

by NORMAN DUNN

Every September, Europe’s top players in the milk sector, from skilled farmhouse cheesemakers to multinational processing giants, meet at the Intermopro exhibition in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Join me at this event and, almost in a single glance, you’ll see why the dairy sector has established itself not only as the leader in value-added earnings for the whole farming industry but also as one of the biggest players in the entire European food and drink sector.

Intermopro never fails to highlight the amazing diversity of new ideas that power the industry and increase sales year after year, although sadly failing at the same time to increase the incomes of the grassroots producers themselves: the dairy farmers of Europe.

Still, no one can deny that the milk economy is thriving. And there’s no argument that this is because it is the best sector within the agrifood industry at identifying consumer demands and then delivering the goods.

Let’s take a walk through the Intermopro halls this year to show what I mean. Catering for the luxury market there are such new cheeses as sheep milk pecorino with truffles, shipped north from Sardinia and wholesaling at $40 Cdn but still completely unable to meet soaring demand (at least in Germany).

We find slicing cheese washed in essence of fig during maturation, injected with a fig and mustard mix and dressed with dried slices of the fruit. This new trend mirrors an old Italian tradition of eating strong cheese with fruit mustards and, this year, the marketing masterminds see such cheeses as real winners in the western Europe market. Even with a heavy dressing of figs - and there are pear and other versions, too - these cheeses are selling at about half the price of the truffle-loaded products from Sardinia.

Some go for colour as well as flavour - Dutch slicing cheese launched with pesto flavouring, for instance, with the cheeses themselves a glorious green.

Oh, and let’s not forget the growth in presentation packs, which offer a small gift along with the cheese. Even the French, justly proud of their high quality sheep, goat and cow milk cheeses from Normandy, the Jura or Provence, are joining the free gift trend. This year Mont des Joux in the Jura launched a new version of its baking cheese speciality, which is normally heated in the oven and spooned semi-liquid onto the plate. This comes with its own ceramic ovenware bowl in the package.

Remember when yoghurt was only available as the “natural” product? The range of yoghurt flavours available this year has beaten all records, with plain old-fashioned strawberry or pineapple giving way to lemon pie, green tea, macadamia nut, ginger cookie or maracuja. And the flavour of the year for milk drinks? For 2006, it’s coffee. There’s hardly a major dairy that isn’t presenting new ranges of cold macchiato, cappuccino or espresso milk or yoghurt drinks.

But some diversification this year starts right at the grass roots of dairying and one actually involves a whole country. Back in 2003, Austria reckoned there was perhaps a small market for milk and milk products that were guaranteed produced by cows whose feed contained no genetically modified (GM) crop material. The move to GM-free milk at that time by Tirol Milch was reported in Better Farming.

But now, the country has seen a much bigger market on the horizon as anti-GM groups whip up opposition to conventional feeds Europe-wide. Although scientists have been brought on stage throughout the continent to assure consumers that GM soymeal in cow feed does not automatically lead to GM milk, many consumers remain obviously unconvinced.

The result: a huge new market opening up for dairying areas that proclaim themselves GM-free and undertake to feed no imported soya to their cows. This year, at Intermopro, Austria announced that GM-free milk will soon be standard in the country with the largest dairy, Berglandmilch, now accepting only GM-free milk from its 13,000 farmer suppliers.

This dairy, processing around 830 million kilograms of milk annually, says its suppliers will use only homegrown protein sources for their cow feed. The Austrian government has stepped in with financial support for trials with Berglandmilch suppliers to find the best alternative feed crops.

By October 2006, 10 major Austrian dairies have joined the non-GM milk movement and its success is causing not a little unease within the rest of the usually upbeat European dairy industry this autumn. Back on the farm, there’s still no real substitute for imported soybean - GM or otherwise - as a wide-range protein supplier in cow concentrates.

Changing to anything else on a European scale would could mean more cost in milk output, one reason why many dairy farmers and processors this year are hoping that the wide range of product innovations, new coffee flavours and exotic cheeses, will keep consumer minds well away from the GM question! BF

Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.