Less milk made in Romania, as low demand & rising prices close a third of the country's dairies

More than 50 dairy producers in Romania, accounting for almost a third of the total, were closed last year due to the reduced domestic demand and the rising production costs, said Dorin Cojocaru, president of the dairy association APRIL, quoted by Mediafax. There were 183 licensed dairies working in Romania at the beginning of 2014, but the number went down to 152 plants by April 2014 and to 130 by the end of the year, according to APRIL. "They closed because business was no longer running. Production costs are higher every year and hypermarkets began to abandon the domestic production of milk, because their own labels are produced in countries such as Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria or Slovakia.These countries sold cheaper milk, because they had with high stocks due the embargo imposed by Russia," Cojocaru explained. Romania is poised to lose more of its remaining dairy producers as the milk quotas in the EU will be lifted on April 1, 2015, allowing each country to produce as much milk as it wants. This means the Romanian market will be flooded by even bigger quantities of imported milk. After this, APRIL expects only 70 dairies to still be active in Romania. editor@romania-insider.com