A major dairy cluster established near Moscow

The new companies would employ 1,700 workers and would have some synergy between each other. “The dairy industry in Moscow Oblast is growing by a rapid pace. In the next two years we expect eight new milk farms to be launched with 10,000 cows and 14,000 goats. There will be also two new milk-processing plants with production performance of 2,350 tonnes of milk per day,” said Khromov.

“In addition, it is expected that four cheese-production plants will be launched in Moscow Oblast during the next two years. The combined designed production capacity would be equal to 15,000 tonnes of cheese per year, which is 25% of all cheese produced in Russia,” Khromov said, adding that the Moscow Oblast curently ranks second in the list of Russia’s biggest cheese-producing regions.

As of today, there are 180 milk farms in Moscow Oblast, including 40 breeding farms, the regional Agricultural Ministry estimated. In total, there are 85,100 milk cows in the region, including 37,200 of breeding cows, the Ministry added.

Photo: Ronald Hissink

Speaking at a separate press conference earlier this year, Andrey Vorobiev, the governor of Moscow Oblast said that the new milk farms in the region were promised to be highly effective. Vorobiev said that the productivity rate in the dairy industry was estimated at 6,800 kg per one cow per year, while the new farms would push it to 8,300 kg per cow per year.

The regional government provides all possible support to the investors willing to start some projects in the dairy industry of the Moscow Oblast, Vorobiev said. In 2019, the regional budget envisaged Rub800 million ($ 12 million) as state aid to the dairy industry in various forms.

Soaring demand in Moscow

The new production facilities are called to serve the demand of Moscow and its 12.5-million population, where the demand for high-quality dairy products is believed to be the highest in the country. To some extent this is associated with the rather high wages.

In 2018, the average wage in Moscow was around Rub81000 ($ 1,200) per month, which was twice than what the citizens were earning on average outside of the Russian capital.

It was estimated that Moscow consumes around 4 million tonnes of milk and dairy products per year, while the prices are on average 20% higher than that of other regions in the country.