The Dairy Industry: Meeting New Consumer Demands

Consumers are increasingly demanding the best of both worlds when it comes to dairy. For example, they want milk that is safe to drink and has a long shelf, but still tastes like farm-fresh raw milk. Prof Elna Buys, head of the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences at the University of Pretoria’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, writes about how the dairy industry has had to innovate to respond to these types of demands.

Farming is an important economic activity in South Africa, providing an income for large- and small-scale farmers, as well as jobs to thousands of people. Over the past few years, there has been an increase in the demand for animal products, such as meat and milk, and the dairy industry has been meeting this demand. The intake of unprocessed milk in South Africa increased 4,8% year-on-year in 2018. While raw milk is considered very desirable in parts of the country, it poses many possible safety hazards, such as a susceptibility to bacterial contamination. For this reason, the dairy industry has improved various technologies to ensure the safety and quality of milk.

A SNAPSHOT OF THE DAIRY MARKET

South Africa’s secondary dairy industry consists of a few large processors operating nationally, a growing number of processors who operate in more than one region, a large number of smaller processors who operate in specific areas, and several milk producers who sell their own produce to retailers and consumers, known as producer-distributors (PDs). The number of PDs decreased by 60% from January 2009 to March 2019, and milk processors decreased 32% over the same period. In South Africa, 98% of the milk produced is sold formally to commercial processors, which is different to the situation in most other African countries, where milk is mostly sold to smaller processors.

In 2018, the South African dairy market was divided into 62% liquid and 38% concentrate products. Pasteurised liquid milk and ultra-high temperature (UHT) milk are the major liquid products, while hard cheese is the main concentrated product.