The European Union’s recent sanction package against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine appears to be the first to specifically target the dairy industry.
According to the Russian Union of Dairy Producers, Soyuzmoloko, European companies will now stop exporting centrifugal cream separators, which are used to separate milk into skimmed milk and cream.
Heat exchangers, vacuum pumps, various types of transformers, and other electrical equipment, which are not exclusive to the dairy industry but are widely used at milk processing plants, are also restricted.
Imports of dairy equipment from other countries
According to Roman Chuybak, Soyuzmoloko’s manager for interaction with authorities, the new restrictions are unlikely to significantly deprive the Russian dairy industry of Western technologies.
“The [Russian] business has already been restricted for a year, and most of the newly sanctioned European goods were already extremely difficult or impossible to import into Russia,” Chuybak explained.
Russian dairy companies have switched to alternative suppliers as a result of these restrictions. Milk separators, for example, are purchased from Turkey, while other equipment is sourced from China and India, according to Chuybak, who added that Russian companies have managed to replace a significant portion of European imports.
On the other hand, Chuybak warned that the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian dairy industry should not be underestimated, and that not all equipment can be found on alternative markets. He predicted that the problems would “gradually worsen” as the list of sanctioned goods grew longer.
Western sanctions may have an even greater impact on the Russian dairy industry; on March 1, Turkish customs officials abruptly stopped allowing sanctioned goods bound for Russia to transit through Turkish territory. As a result, Turkish companies can now re-export European goods to Russian customers. Several Russian companies have admitted to importing some equipment through third countries such as Turkey, the UAE, and Kazakhstan, a practise known as parallel import.
