Amid challenges on the domestic and European milk markets, Poland’s dairy sector is increasingly counting on growing exports to Ukraine.
Poland’s dairy sector increasingly views Ukraine as a stable, growing sales destination: in the first half of the year Ukraine markedly increased its dairy imports, and Poland remains the main beneficiary, Holstein.pl reports.
The piece draws on Ukraine’s Ekonomichna Pravda, citing the Association of Milk Producers and preliminary data from Ukraine’s State Statistics Service.
Ukraine’s dairy imports jump 30%
In January–June, Ukraine imported 39,170 tonnes of dairy products — up 30% year on year.
Poland is the main supplier, and cheese dominates, making up as much as 60% of all dairy imports to Ukraine (with significant cheese volumes also from Germany, the Netherlands, Latvia and Czechia).
Meanwhile Ukraine’s own exports fell: 63,780 tonnes in the first half (−10%), earning USD 180.87 million (−20%), hit by complex licensing procedures and guarantee-deposit requirements for EU deliveries. In June alone, Ukraine’s dairy trade balance closed at −USD 2.37 million.
What Ukraine exports — and why Poland cares
Despite the drop, Ukrainian producers remain present internationally, but in different segments than Poland: ice cream (28%) and condensed milk and cream (26%) led exports, with cheese 14%, butter 10% and casein 8%.
Ukraine’s main buyers are Moldova, Poland and Germany; June brought export growth in ice cream (+21% m/m) and fermented dairy (+31% m/m), but butter exports collapsed 78% versus May.
For Polish producers, Ukraine has become a key non-EU «third market», especially for cheese: while the EU internal market is prone to price pressure, the absorbent Ukrainian market lets Poland place surplus output and keep processing volumes high.
Every tonne of cheese exported east, the outlet says, directly helps stabilise domestic milk purchase prices and supports Polish dairy farms’ budgets.
