An overview of the Turkish dairy sector

Abstract

This study will provide information on the milk and milk products sector in Turkey. The Turkish food and agricultural sector has 24,000 enterprises, of which 18%, some 4,320 enterprises, are in the dairy sector. Total raw milk production amounted to 18.5 million tons in 2015. Turkey ranks 10th among world milk producers. The production of raw milk is mainly from cows and accounts for an average of 91-92 % of the total production. Generally speaking, family labor constitutes much of the workforce for the current 1,700,000 dairy farms in Turkey. The collected cow milk is processed into drinking milk, cheese, yogurt, ayran (a drink made of yogurt and salt) and other dairy products like butter, kefir, milk cream, and ice cream. Annual production of dairy products can be broken down into fresh milk (251,632 tons), yogurt (1.1 billion tons), cheese (201,260 tons), butter (45,000 tons), ayran (51, 844 tons) and cream (1,383 tons). Data shows that 35% of milk is used by farm families for their own consumption or processing, 11% is sold by street vendors and 54% is processed by mandiras (small, simple dairy processing establishments). Dairy products are marketed in three ways: Organized distribution (networks), with a share of 31%, non-organized distribution (individual shops), with a share of 44%, and open distribution (bazaars and the like), with a share of 25%.