Top 20 global dairy companies revealed

The world’s biggest dairy companies have entrenched their positions in the latest Rabobank top 20 table.

Swiss multinational Nestlé leads the list with dairy sales of €21.3bn (£17bn) in 2013, with France’s Danone and Lactalis filling up the top three slots.

Arla Foods, now part-owned by 3,000 British farmers, made seventh place for the second year running.

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Other farmer co-operatives also kept their high rankings.

New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra and Arla’s rival FrieslandCampina, owned by 14,000 Dutch, German and Belgian farmers, stayed at fourth and fifth respectively.

Another name well-known to British farmers, Muller, moved up from 20 to 18, with estimated dairy sales of €3.8bn (£3bn).

Two Chinese companies crept up the table due to fast growth – Mengniu’s dairy sales rose 20% and Yili entered the top 10 after a 14% increase.

The past 12 months had been a tough year for the biggest businesses, Rabobank’s report said.

Dairy sales in developed countries were stagnant, growth in emerging markets slowed and higher farmgate milk prices raised their cost base.

With growth forecast not to return to pre-2008 levels, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures would be important paths to growth.

“The catch is that the number of attractive targets is shrinking,” said Rabobank analyst Tim Hunt.

“With billion-dollar value deals harder to come by, dairy giants will need to acquire or tie up with more companies than in the past to sustain the same rates of growth.”