By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL 

Turkey's cow milk production jumped by 10.05 percent in 2018 year-on-year, according to Wednesday’s official figures.

The data by the Turkish Statistical Institute showed that the amount of cow milk collected by the integrated dairies was 10.03 million tons in 2018.

Last year, drinking milk production also soared by 7.3 percent to 1.66 million tons, the official data revealed.

The country produced some 756,000 tons of cheese -- 95.5 percent of which was yielded from cow milk as the rest was produced from sheep, goat, buffalo and mixed milk – in 2018, up 9.6 percent on an annual basis.

Yoghurt production increased by 2.3 percent to reach 1.2 million tons and ayran -- drink made of yoghurt -- production rose by 1.9 percent to reach nearly 731,000 tons year-on-year in 2018.

The country also produced 109,500 tons of milk powder, some 66,000 tons of butter, and nearly 33,000 tons of cream last year.

Monthly data

Meanwhile, Turkey's cow milk production fell by 5.3 percent to reach around 769,000 tons in December, compared to the same month in 2017.

The country's drinking milk production dropped by 11.3 percent (140,734 tons) while cheese production rose by 1.34 percent (58,836 tons), year-on-year in December.

In the last month of 2018, yoghurt (89,377 tons) and ayran (53,631 tons) production was also down by 4.5 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, versus December 2017.

In December, Turkey produced over 9,000 tons of milk powder, some 6,300 tons of butter, and over 3,000 tons of cream.

TurkStat will release the related figures for January 2019 on March 13.