Milk production reached 160.8 million tonnes in 2023

EU farms produced an estimated 160.8 million tonnes of raw milk in 2023. This marks an increase of 0.8 million tonnes compared with 2022 and a rise of 15.8 million tonnes compared with 2013.

This information comes from data on milk and milk products published by Eurostat. The article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on milk and milk products.

Source dataset: apro_mk_farm

Most milk used for butter and cheese production

The vast majority of the raw milk produced in 2023 was delivered to dairies (149.3 million tonnes) and used to produce a range of fresh and manufactured dairy products. 
In 2023, dairies produced 22.0 million tonnes of drinking milk and 7.8 million tonnes of acidified milk products (like yoghurt). 

However, most of the milk was used for cheese and butter production. Specifically, 58.2 million tonnes of whole milk and 17.4 million tonnes of skimmed milk were used to produce 10.6 million tonnes of cheese. A further 45.4 million tonnes of whole milk were used to produce 2.3 million tonnes of butter.

Source dataset: apro_mk_pobta (EU aggregates estimated for this release)

Germany was the largest producer of drinking milk in the EU, accounting for 19% of the total production. It was also the top producer of acidified milk products (27%), butter (20%) and cheese (22%).

Spain ranked second in drinking milk production, with 15% of the EU total, followed by France (13%). The Netherlands was the second largest producer of acidified milk products (17%), followed by Poland (10%).

France was the second largest producer of both butter and cheese (18% of the EU total for each product). Ireland ranked third in butter production (13%), while Italy was third in cheese production (13%).