Economic characteristics of sour cream production in small-scale dairy processors in Serbia

Abstract

In Serbia small family households dominate in milk production, while large-scale capacity dairies dominate in milk processing. There are over 200 dairy processing plants, and currently they manufacture about 80% of all dairy products. In this race small-scale dairies are lagging behind. The aim of this paper is to investigate economic characteristics of processing milk into sour cream in smallscale dairy processors in Serbia. The research showed that the cost price of sour cream with a minimum of 20% milk fat is 68.96 RSD/kg. The largest share in total costs has costs of raw material accout for 44.11% and labor costs for 38.79%, while the remaining costs are packaging, transport and other overheads. In order for small-scale capacity dairies to compete with larger-scale capacity dairies, both in product quality and price, it is necessary to continuously monitor and minimize production costs.