Greek yogurt “conquers” Germany

Greek yogurt is currently galloping in the German market, with Greek exports showing a 21% increase over the last five years. In fact, in a market where the per capita consumption reaches 15 kg per year, the growth margins remain significant, despite the problems of unfair competition faced by Greek companies from "imitations".

Greek yogurt is one of the most important dairy products, thanks to the shift of consumers to a healthy diet. According to data from the consulting company Mordor Intelligence, the European market of Greek or "Greek type" yogurt is estimated to continue to grow until 2024 at an annual rate of 8%, at the same time that according to Euromonitor data the sales of dairy products that have fermented are estimated to reach 3 billion euros in 2023.

All this raises expectations and "whets the appetite" of Greek exporters, who have shown strong extroversion as a measure to deal with the economic conditions that prevailed in the internal market during the crisis. A black spot is the fact that Greek companies were forced to follow conservative pricing policies in order to compete with the much cheaper German "Greek type" yogurts.

It should be noted that almost 50% of the total consumption of yogurt in Germany concerns natural yogurt, ie the type of yogurt that mainly concerns Greek exports. Consumption of natural yogurt doubled from 3.3 kg in 2005 to 6.6 kg per person in 2020, with Greek yogurt being a key driver of growth.

The Office of Economic Affairs of the Greek Embassy in Germany estimates that in the large food chains in Munich Greek yogurts together with products imported from Greece constitute at least 25% of the yogurt codes available. In 2020, Greece ranked 4th in yogurt imports to Germany while Greece's exports to...