Ioannis Kaimakamis

In this insight, I look at Greek feta exports in 2025 and what happens when booming volumes meet sheep and goat milk prices.

If you only consider supermarket shelves in Europe, the story of Greek feta in 2025 seems straightforward. The cheese is widely available, sales are increasing, and the “Greek” brand remains influential. However, when comparing export data with the monthly producer prices for sheep and goat milk, a more detailed picture comes into view.

In the period January–September 2025, Greece is exporting more feta than ever, but at slightly lower unit prices, while producer milk prices remain effectively flat at historically high levels. For the dairy industry, this signifies growth increasingly driven by volume, with a quiet squeeze on margins between export prices and raw milk costs.

1. Greek feta exports 2025: what the data actually say

When I analyse monthly trade data for CN 04069032 (the statistical proxy for feta), the pattern for January–September 2024 compared to the same period in 2025 is transparent. Export quantities increase by roughly 9%, the total export value rises by about 6.5%, yet the average export price per kilogram falls from around 8.11 €/kg to about 7.93 €/kg. In other words, the world is buying more Greek feta, but paying slightly less for each kilo.

Month by month, exports increase by tens of thousands of tonnes. The 2025 curve indicates a very strong spring–summer shipping period and a noticeable rise in July 2025, which appears to be a record month in both volume and value. Feta is not declining; it is still expanding overseas. However, this growth is no longer driven by higher prices. The market is essentially saying: “I still want more of your product, but not at any price.”

That shift from price-led to volume-led growth is the first structural message in the data.

2. Milk prices: the floor is real

On the other side of the value chain, I turn to the ELGO–DIMITRA monthly statistics for fresh sheep and goat milk. For 2024, the average producer price for sheep milk stands at about 1.38 €/kg and for goat milk around 0.90 €/kg. These are levels that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

In 2025, up to September, sheep milk prices move month by month in a narrow band around 1.38–1.41 €/kg. The Jan–Sep average is very close to the 2024 full-year average. Goat milk shows a mild correction, with the Jan–Sep 2025 average slipping slightly below 0.90 €/kg, closer to 0.88 €/kg. The message is straightforward for me. Sheep milk has found a floor, while goat milk provides a small adjustment lever.

For sheep milk, this floor is not a bargaining tactic; it is the minimum requirement for flock survival given current costs in feed, labour, veterinary services, and financing. Pushing prices well below this level would simply lead to the removal of animals and people from the system. Goat milk, especially where goats are more marginal in the processing mix, can bear some of the pressure, but it cannot save the entire value chain.

So while export prices for feta are gently trending down, milk prices – especially for sheep – are not. They are sticky on the way down. That stickiness is precisely what sets up the margin squeeze.

3. From milk to feta: a simple margin calculation

To translate this into economics, I use a simple calculation. Many plants operate with a milk mix that is roughly 70% sheep milk and 30% goat milk. Others work closer to an 80/20 mix. A typical conversion ratio is about 4 kilograms of milk per 1 kilogram of feta, depending on technology and process control.

On that basis, in 2024 the weighted average milk price for a 70/30 blend is in the order of 1.24 €/kg. Multiplying by the four kilos of milk needed per kilo of cheese gives a raw milk cost of just under 5 €/kg of feta. With an average export price slightly above 8.10 €/kg, the gross margin before processing, packaging, logistics and overheads lands a little above 3 €/kg. For an 80/20 blend, the higher share of sheep milk pushes the raw material cost slightly higher and the margin slightly lower, but the picture remains broadly the same.

In 2025, the cost of milk remains largely unchanged. Sheep milk stays at its current level, goat milk adjusts only slightly, and the total raw milk cost per kilogram of feta remains essentially the same as in 2024. The main change is in the export price, which drops to around 7.93 €/kg. Consequently, the gross margin per kilogram of feta decreases by approximately 0.17–0.18 €/kg, representing a reduction of about five to six percent.

This is the heart of the story. Exports are up, but each exported kilo leaves slightly less room to pay for energy, labour, financing costs and investment.

4. What this means for the Greek feta model

When I read these numbers together, I don’t just see a successful export product. I see a mature, high-volume industrial ecosystem that is quietly entering a new phase.

First, the era of easy price increases is over. For several years, international markets accepted Greek feta at a clear premium versus other white cheeses. Retailers and importers now push back much more aggressively. Greek exporters can still gain share and grow by volume, but they can no longer assume that every season will support another 20–30 cents at the export gate without friction.

Second, the primary sector is locked into high costs and cannot “bail out” the industry by simply accepting lower prices. Sheep milk at 1.38–1.40 €/kg is not a windfall for farmers; it is the minimum required to keep flocks viable in an environment of expensive feed, acute labour shortages, productivity issues, and zoonoses. Expecting the sheep sector to absorb the whole shock of lower export prices is unrealistic and, in the medium term, dangerous. It would mean fewer animals, less milk and ultimately a smaller, weaker feta industry.

Third, margin management has to move away from pure price negotiation and focus on productivity, product mix and cost discipline. The strategic question is no longer “how do I sell feta at 8.50 €/kg instead of 8.10 €/kg?” but “how do I protect a healthy 3 €/kg margin over-milk in a world where the top line may move sideways or slightly down?” That implies higher yields from milk to cheese through better technology and tighter process control; more innovative product architecture that leverages premium, origin-based, and organic segments to sustain higher unit prices where justified; and systematic work on energy efficiency, logistics optimisation, and overhead control. It also implies a more deliberate approach to financing, so that interest and working capital requirements do not silently consume the incremental margin generated by export growth.

Fourth, policy and corporate strategy need to stop treating feta as an inexhaustible ATM. The export engine is already running at high speed. Pushing it harder without investing in resilience – in animal health, genetics, feed security and human capital – risks over-stretch. On the milk side there are no “cheap reserves” left. Significant price reductions would translate quickly into reduced production capacity. For Greek agri-food strategy, feta should be seen not only as a PDO success story but as a capital-intensive national asset that requires a long-term plan, stable rules and a serious approach to risk management, from animal diseases and climate volatility to trade policy and the proliferation of “feta-like” products.

5. From data to decisions

On paper, the 2025 picture of Greek feta is impressive. More product, shipped to more markets, generating billions of euros in export value; producer prices that, for now, remain compatible; and a brand that continues to command a premium, even under pressure. But the combination of flat milk prices and slightly lower export prices for 2025 is also a warning signal.

It tells me that the next phase will not be about celebrating records. It will be about managing a complex, tightly tuned system. Keeping farmers in business, keeping factories profitable, keeping the product genuinely Greek and PDO-compliant, and keeping international consumers willing to pay for it.

The data for 2024–2025, read carefully, is less a snapshot and more a stress test. Feta passes that test – for now. The real question is what we choose to do with this information before the margin squeeze stops being a line on a graph and starts showing up as farms and factories that quietly disappear from the map.