Record cheese imports squeeze Spain’s sheep and goat dairy farmers
Spain imported a record 435,000 tonnes of cheese in 2025, 6.4% more than a year earlier and three times its export volume. Growing demand for cheaper foreign cheese is putting pressure on domestic sheep and goat milk production and on small artisanal processors.
Imports rise as Spain’s cheese market expands
Spain’s cheese market is growing, but domestic sheep and goat dairy farmers are capturing less of that demand. According to the latest barometer from the National Federation of Dairy Industries, or Fenil, supermarket cheese sales reached about 463,000 tonnes over the latest twelve-month period, an increase of 3.6% from the previous year. At the same time, sheep’s and goat’s milk cheeses are losing space in consumers’ baskets, weakening demand for locally produced milk.
ABC reported that Spain imported a record 435,000 tonnes of cheese in 2025, 6.4% more than in the previous year and three times the country’s cheese export volume. Cheese imports have increased by 60% over the past decade. Total dairy product imports also exceeded 1 million tonnes for the first time in 2025. Consumption is increasingly shifting toward products associated with suppliers in Germany, the Netherlands and France rather than traditional Spanish cheese categories.
Small farms face a widening cost and scale gap
Fenil describes much of the incoming supply as minimally differentiated, low-cost cheese. The competitive pressure is particularly strong for Spain’s sheep and goat farms: goat milk production has fallen by 3%, while sheep milk production has declined by 5%. The Netherlands has emerged as one of the European Union’s leading goat milk producers, using highly automated, large-scale businesses that can reduce raw milk prices by as much as 30% compared with the smaller Iberian market.
Spanish production is more local, fragmented and exposed to weather. High summer temperatures reduce output by more than 10% during the season. Producers also report shrinking pasture availability, greater dependence on increasingly expensive feed and heavier administrative costs. Amancio, the owner of Collados Quesería in Huéscar, Granada, processes between 5,000 and 10,000 litres of milk a month. By comparison, large companies process 50,000 litres a day, illustrating the scale disadvantage facing artisanal operators.
Demand shifts toward cheaper cow’s milk cheese
The pressure on sheep and goat dairies coincides with expansion in Spanish cow’s milk cheese. Production of pure cow’s milk cheese rose by 30%, from 200,000 tonnes in 2016 to about 260,000 tonnes in 2024. Fenil links this growth to changing consumer preferences, particularly stronger demand for fresh cheese. Ángel López of the Institute of Agricultural and Fisheries Research and Training said declining purchasing power is leading consumers to prioritize price over quality. Cow milk also offers higher yields, lowering raw-material costs, while the limited seasonal stability of goat milk complicates long-term planning and large-scale processing.
Farm groups warn that poor profitability and a lack of generational renewal could accelerate farm closures and weaken rural communities. Ángeles Santos, a livestock farmer and member of the Coordinator of Farmers’ and Livestock Producers’ Organizations, described the expansion of large industrial operators as the “Uberization” of farming. Producers and Fenil argue that Spain cannot match northern European scale on price and should instead differentiate through quality and origin. Fenil is asking public authorities and the industry to promote Spanish cheese domestically and in export markets including the United States and the United Kingdom, while encouraging consumers to check labels for Spanish origin.
