Ukraine is exporting fewer dairy products to the EU
The reinstatement of tariff quotas under the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) between the European Union and Ukraine, combined with a drop in global prices, has led to a significant decline in exports of domestic dairy products.
The butter and skim milk powder (SMP) segments were hit the hardest.
Leonid Tulush, head of the expert and analytical service at the Ukrainian Dairy Industry Association, reported on this negative trend.
According to the analyst, on June 6, 2025, the European side terminated the temporary duty-free regime for Kyiv, which automatically reinstated restrictions on dozens of categories of Ukrainian goods.
A comparative analysis of export trends for the first five months of 2025 and 2026 shows a significant decline specifically in quota-restricted categories.
While in January–May 2025, the share of EU countries in the overall structure of Ukraine’s dairy product exports exceeded 71%, during the same period in 2026, it fell by half—to 36%.
The situation is even more critical in the butter market. Butter shipments to European consumers plummeted 4.3-fold over the year: the EU’s share of purchases fell from 55% to 13%.
At the same time, the market share of products not subject to quota regulations has remained stable or even shown minimal growth.
“In contrast, the share of non-quota whey and fresh cheese shipments to the EU has remained virtually unchanged. For whey, it even increased in 2026—from 37.5% to 40.7%; for fresh cheeses, it consistently exceeded 26%,” the expert notes.
An additional factor putting pressure on Ukrainian producers was the prolonged price spike on European trading platforms, which began in the second half of 2025.
Butter saw the most significant decline in value—as of May 2026, the price of this product in the EU had plummeted to 55% of the level recorded in May of the previous year.
Actual utilization rates of the allocated quotas in the first half of 2026 were also uneven.
Ukrainian exporters managed to fill 70% of their skim milk powder quotas, while only a quarter (25%) of the butter export quota was utilized.
This was reported by Leonid Tulush, head of the expert and analytical service of the Ukrainian Dairy Industry Association.
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