Per capita dairy consumption in Iran has fallen to less than 40 kilograms per person per year.

Based on a report from the Union of Dairy Cooperatives, dairy factories in the country are now operating at less than 30% of their capacity. The figure shows a continuous downward trend. Ali Hossein Zafari, the managing director of this union, had said earlier this year, in Ordibehesht, that per capita consumption had fallen to less than 50 kilograms, and before that this figure was 120 kilograms. The current per capita figure is about one-fifth of the global average.

Zafari attributed the cause to the increase in the price of raw milk, packaging materials, wages, and therefore the collapse in households’ purchasing power. He had said that the distribution of the goods vouchers (kalabarg) had not affected dairy consumption.