International Dairy Market Prospects: promising Future but Ensure Seat Belts are Buckled and Crash Hats On!

摘要

Food industry pundits are optimistic of the market environment for food globally over the next few decades and with good reason: the world population is expected to increase from its current 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050. Most of the extra 2 billionpeople will be in emerging countries. If their incomes increase, then demand for animal-based protein foods will soar which should be good news for producers of meat and dairy products. This is just as well as demand for these products in developed countries may well be static or only very slowly growing reflecting that: per capita consumption levels are already relatively high; consumers view full fat dairy products as being "unhealthy" (e.g. butter, cheese) and, increasingly, there may be plant-basedsubstitute products made from soya, rice, and nuts; more esoteric concerns about the dairy industry's impact on the environment and on animal welfare may constrain purchases; and, in slow growth developed economies, escalating dairy product prices may cause lower income shoppers to seek lower priced food product alternatives.