Band 8.5 — Table: Milk and Butter Consumption in Four Countries (2019 vs 2024)

The table shows the average annual per-capita consumption of milk and butter in four countries in 2019 and 2024.

Overall, dairy consumption moved in opposite directions in the Western and the Asian countries, with both products declining in France and the USA while rising in India and China. Butter, meanwhile, remained a distinctly French speciality throughout the period.

In the Western countries, the fall was steady rather than steep. American milk consumption, which had been the highest in the table in 2019 at 60 kg per person, dropped to 54 kg five years later, thereby allowing India—up from 48 kg to 55 kg—to overtake it as the leading milk consumer. French butter intake slipped from 7.8 kg to 7.2 kg, though this figure still stood at least three times higher than that of any other country.

The Asian countries, by contrast, showed consistent growth from lower starting points. China recorded the sharpest increases in relative terms: its milk consumption climbed by more than a third, from 22 kg to 30 kg, whereas butter, despite remaining the smallest figure in the table, nearly doubled from 0.8 kg to 1.4 kg.