An overview of the Turkish dairy sector

WOS: 000411009300001This review provides information about 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 in 2015 amounted 18.5 million tons. Turkey ranks on 10th place among world milk producers. Approximately 91-92 % of the total raw milk production is cow's milk production. Generally speaking, family labor constitutes much of the workforce of the current 1,700,000 dairy farms in Turkey. The collected cow's milk is processed into drinking milk, cheese, yogurt, ayran and other dairy products like butter, kefir, milk cream and ice cream. In Turkey annual production of dairy products is: 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 family farms for their own consumption or processing, 11% is sold by street vendors and 54% is processed by mandiras. 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), with a share of 25%