Food Safety in Europe

Dairies collected relatively little milk from other animals (sheep, goats, and buffalos) in most of the EU member states in 2013. However, in Greece the volume of milk collected from other species (643,000 tonnes) was higher than the level of milk collected from cows (607,000 tonnes).

The milk delivered to dairies is converted into a number of fresh products and manufactured dairy products. Some 68.2 million tonnes of raw milk were used to produce 9.3 million tonnes of cheese in the EU-28 in 2013. Approximately 31.5 million tonnes of raw milk were turned into a similar amount of drinking milk in the EU-28 in 2013.

In the EU-28 in 2013, 19.3 million tonnes of raw milk were converted into 2.1 million tonnes of milk powder and 41.0 million tonnes of whole milk were used to produce an estimated 2.1 million tonnes of butter, as well as associated skimmed milk and buttermilk. This explains why the amount of “whole milk” used for producing butter was higher than the “total” milk used.

Just over one-fifth (21.9 percent) of the estimated 31.9 million tonnes of drinking milk produced in the EU-28 in 2013 came from the U.K., despite this member state accounting for only about one-tenth of the milk produced in the EU-28.

This relative specialization was also observed for other dairy products. For example, Germany, France and Italy accounted for almost three-fifths (56.9 percent) of the 9.3 million tonnes of cheese produced across the EU-28 in 2013.

Fish

Total fishery production covers total catches in the seven regions covered by EU statistical regulations, as well as aquaculture production for human consumption. The total production of fishery products in the EU was an estimated 5.7 million tonnes of live weight equivalent (in other words, the mass or weight when removed from water) in 2012. It should be noted that this figure excludes catch data for the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia, which are landlocked countries without a marine fishing fleet.

Within the EU, the three largest fishery producers in terms of volume in 2012 were Spain (1 million live weight tonnes), the U.K. (0.8 million live weight tonnes), and France (0.7 million live weight tonnes).

About one fifth of the EU-28’s total fishery production comes from aquaculture. Total aquaculture fishery production was 1.25 million tonnes of live weight in 2012. The three largest aquaculture producers among EU member states were Spain, the U.K., and France, which together accounted for 54 percent of the EU-28’s aquaculture production in 2012.

The most important aquaculture species in terms of weight have been Mediterranean mussel, Atlantic salmon, Rainbow trout, and Blue mussel, followed by Pacific cupped oyster. The weight measurement includes bones and shells.

Atlantic salmon produced by far the highest economic value, followed by Pacific cupped oyster, Rainbow trout, Gilthead sea bream, and European sea bass.

Despite the large number of species, countries tend to focus their aquaculture production on very few species each. As such, mussels accounted for 76 percent of the live weight from aquaculture in Spain in 2012; oysters accounted for 39 percent and mussels for 29 percent of the live weight in France; while salmon, mussels and trout accounted for 98 percent of total aquaculture production in the U.K..

In 2012, aquaculture production in Norway (1.32 million tonnes of live weight) overtook that of the entire EU-28 (1.25 million tonnes of live weight) for the first time. Most recently, Norwegian aquaculture production has doubled in only seven years (in 2005 it stood at 0.66 million tonnes). This growth has been largely focused on a single species, the Atlantic salmon.—L.L.L

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This content was referenced from Agriculture, forestry and fishery statistics, 2014 edition.