In April, Swiss cheese exports fell by 13.4% in volume terms compared with the same month last year. In March, exports were predominantly good to very good (Emmentaler AOP).
According to Sortenorganisation, the corona crisis in Italy led to increased purchases in the retail trade, while sales in the food service sector suffered.
As reported by TSM Treuhand, Swiss cheese exports fell by 0.8% in the first four months. This means that April destroyed business that had previously been going well.
For Emmentaler AOP, the decline in April compared with the same month last year was 9.5%. Gruyère AOP, the most important export cheese in terms of volume, recorded a drop of 16.2% in April. However, thanks to good sales from January to March, both types of cheese are still up on the same period last year. For Appenzeller, there was a 25% decline in April compared to the previous year and a shortfall of 2.6% over the first four months. Tilsiter, Raclette, Vacherin fribourgeois AOP and Sbrinz AOP also lost volumes in April, as did the segment of “other semi-hard cheeses with over 45% fat in dry matter” and the “other full-fat semi-hard cheeses” with minus 21.6% and minus 31% respectively.
Only the exports of cheese sort Switzerland Swiss increasd by 50.8% in the month of April; sales were up 6.8% during the first four months. Processed cheese exports grew by 37.2% in April and by 12.3% in the first four months.
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