The recently published provisional figures from the Federal Agricultural Information Centre (BZL) show that the production volume of cheese in Germany in 2024 was around 3.2% higher than a year earlier at a total of 2.7 million tons. This includes hard cheese, semi-hard and semi-soft cheese, soft and fresh cheese, pasta filata cheese, sour milk, cooked and whey cheese, processed cheese and processed cheese preparations. With a share of around 31% of total cheese production, semi-hard and semi-soft cheese continues to be one of the most important types of cheese. Fresh cheese had a share of around 30 %.
Imports of cheese amounted to 944,900 tons in 2024, an increase of 5% compared to the previous year. Exports amounted to 1.4 million tons, up 1.4% on the previous year.
Per capita consumption increased for all cheese products. Per person, 25.4 kilograms of cheese were consumed - an increase of one kilogram. The self-sufficiency rate amounted to 129.4%, 1.5 percentage points lower than in 2023.
In contrast, the trend of recent years continued in the production of drinking milk by dairies in Germany. It again recorded a slight decline of 0.9% to around 4.1 million tons. At 46.2 kilograms, per capita consumption was roughly on a par with the previous year. The self-sufficiency rate for drinking milk fell by 1.3% to 106.4% in 2024.
Not only did the production of drinking milk decrease, but the volume of milk supplied by domestic producers also fell by 118,000 tons compared to the previous year to around 31.3 million tons.
Among other things, bluetongue disease has made itself felt here. However, another important reason is the significant decline in the number of dairy cows in recent years. In 2024, the decline continued by around 123,000 to just under 3.6 million animals. The significant decline could no longer be compensated for by the increased average annual milk yield per cow of 9,445 kilograms.
Structural change is also continuing in dairy farming, with the number of dairy farms falling by 3.8% from 50,581 to 48,649 in 2024, reaching a new low. An average of 74 cows were kept per farm.
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DLG-Agrifuture Insights is the DLG knowledge brand and platform for international trend analyses in the agricultural sector. It examines the business environment in agriculture in Germany and worldwide. For this purpose, farmers and people from agribusiness, science and consulting are surveyed annually on their assessments of the economic situation and development of agricultural businesses, as well as technology trends and innovations in the individual business sectors.