Dairy is Australia’s third-largest rural industry, behind wheat and beef, worth $13 billion across farm-gate,manufacturing and export. Globally, Australia is a small milk producer, accounting for 7% of international dairy trade (in milk-equivalent terms) down from a peak of 15% a few years ago.
The industry faces several challenges, including short shelf-life of fresh milk, supply chain issues, counterfeiting, increasing market share consumption domestically and maintaining the highest quality goods.
The rising popularity of “clean, green” Australian produce has seen the rise of counterfeiting. In China particularly, Australian dairy products are viewed as highly prestigious. Middle-class Chinese consumers are highly focused on quality and image and Australian producers have capitalised well on being viewed as a source of quality produce. While counterfeiting is a familiar problem to lots of international brands that have been in China for a long time, Australia’s newly valuable brands need to make sure they are well placed to circumnavigate this.
As the supply chain becomes increasingly global, transparency along its entirety is also an issue.
This whitepaper looks at challenges and risks in Australia’s dairy processing industry. It outlines market and consumer trends, then addresses brand protection via several risk-mitigation strategies.
