Food Safety in Europe

The second and third most commonly cultivated species of fruits in the EU are oranges and peaches (including nectarines), with shares of nearly 21 percent and 15 percent respectively.

Spain, Italy, Greece, and Portugal are the EU’s largest citrus fruit (oranges, small citrus fruits and lemons) producing countries. Citrus fruit production in the EU is much more restricted by climatic conditions; the vast majority of citrus fruits are produced in Spain. There were 11.194 million tonnes of citrus produced in the EU-28 in 2013.

After apple and citrus fruit trees, the peach (including nectarines) is the most important fruit tree species in the EU with 200,000 ha. Spain has the largest producing area for peaches, followed by Italy and Greece. There were 2.497 million tonnes of peaches produced in the EU-28 in 2013.

The area under pear trees in the EU covers about 105,000 ha. Italy and Spain together cover approximately 50 percent of the EU total area in pear trees. Portugal, Belgium, and the Netherlands each represent from 8 percent to 9 percent of the EU total pear tree area.

Apricot trees grew on almost 68,000 ha in 2012. The three most important apricot producing countries in the EU were Spain (30 percent), Italy (nearly 25 percent), and France (nearly 19 percent).

Meat

In 2013, looking at EU member states, Germany, Spain, France, and the U.K. held the largest number of cattle. In Germany and Spain, these are mainly pigs (28.1 million and 25.5 million head, respectively), in France bovines (19.1 million head), and in the U.K. sheep (22.6 million head).

Livestock numbers for the EU-28 in 2013 were 103.91 million head of bovine animals, 149.98 million head of pigs, 83.39 million head of sheep, and 10.57 million head of goats.

Pig meat production for the EU-28 was 21.9 million tonnes in 2013.

Germany produced about one quarter (24.9 percent or 5.5 million tonnes) of the EU-28’s pig meat in 2013, while Spain produced one sixth (15.6 percent or 3.4 million tonnes) of the total.

France (19.1 percent), Germany (16.8 percent), and the U.K. (13.5 percent) made up 9.4 percent of total EU-28 beef production in 2013..

The U.K. (38.3 percent) and Spain (16.8 percent) contributed 55.1 percent of total EU-28 sheep and goat meat production in 2013.

France, the U.K., Poland, and Germany each accounted for 11 to 13 percent of the total production of poultry meat in the EU-28 in 2013.

Production of meat by types of animal in the EU-28 in 2013 included bovine animals at 7,271.7 million tonnes of carcass weight, pigs at 21,940.1 million tonnes of carcass weight, sheep at 710.5 million tonnes of carcass weight, goats at 47.5 million tonnes of carcass weight, and poultry at an estimated 12,765.0 million tonnes of carcass weight.

Dairy

Farms across the EU-28 produced approximately 158.8 million tonnes of milk in 2013, of which 153.8 million tonnes (or 96.8 percent) were cows’ milk. Milk from ewes, goats, and buffalo represent 3.2 percent of the total EU-28 milk production in 2013.

The EU-28’s dairy herd of 23.5 million cows in 2013 had an estimated average yield of 6,553 kg per head. Average yields of milk per cow varied considerably between regions of the EU member states in 2013. The apparent yield was highest, between 8,500 kg (18,739.3 lbs.) and 9,800 kg (21,605.3 lbs.) per cow per year, in the most productive regions of Portugal, Denmark, Germany, and Finland.

By contrast, the apparent yield was relatively low, between 3,500 kg (7,716.18 lbs.) and 3, 900 kg (8,598.03 lbs.) per head, in the most productive regions of Romania and Bulgaria, where milk production was typically less specialized. Some 21.5 percent of all the cows’ milk collected by the EU-28’s dairies in 2013 came from Germany, while 17.0 percent originated from dairies in France.