The milk market in Italy
The milk market The milk market in Italy has for some years now entered a phase of maturity with more or less constant sales and production volumes.
In quantitative terms there are about 135 companies in the sector for a sales volume in 1999 of 3,047 million litres or a value of 5,454 billion lire.
While the market is covered by a large number of companies in reality it is dominated by two domestic companies, Parmalat and Granarolo.
Centrale del Latte di Torino & C. is number six in Italy. Centrale del Latte di Torino & C. S.p.A. occupies about 6th place among producers.
Recently the sector has shown a pronounced trend towards concentration, mainly by means of acquisitions: the most significant moves in the sector concern Cirio S.p.A. and Municipal Milk Producers.
In 1998 Cirio acquired a controlling interest in Centrale del Latte di Roma but then in 1999 it sold off all its dairy product activities to Parmalat S.p.A. through a new company named Eurolat.
On the other hand municipal milk producers have continued to be privatised and merged: besides the acquisition of Centro Latte Rapallo by Centrale del Latte di Torino, during the course of 1999 Caseificio Valle Stura bought Cooperativa Raccolta Latte Val Maira; Gala in Catania bought Centro Latte Caila in Marsala whereas Granarolo bought Centrale del Latte di Milano - and both Centrale di Vicenza and Salerno are on their way to privatisation.
The product penetration rate for the Italian population is 88%, with a strong predominance of the young/very young.
Average consumption in Italy As regards Italy's per capita consumption of milk - both fresh and UHT - the country is way behind almost all other European countries with an average of 59 litres per year compared with a European average of 109 litres.
Fresh milk In the fresh milk segment competitive efforts are directed at motivational drives to purchases which are more and more dictated by factors concerning food quality and safety. For instance, one product reflecting this trend is Grade A milk now produced by almost all companies in the sector.
UHT On the UHT front the entire segment is marked by a generally downmarket image compared with the quality of the product and price still remains a significant discriminating factor for purchase.
Special milks It has therefore become important to understand consumer needs, launching special types of milk with a higher service element, like milks with probiotic fermenting agents or added vitamins which extend the breadth of the range.
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