Chile set a historic milk-production record after 5.9% growth in 2025
Chile’s dairy processors received 2.5462bn litres of milk in 2025, according to the 2025 Dairy Sector Indicators: Domestic Market. Large-scale dairy plants accounted for 2.3711bn litres, while smaller establishments received 175.1m litres. The report was prepared by the Centre for Dairy Information, which includes the Chilean Dairy Consortium, Fedeleche and Exporlac, with Odepa writing the section on the domestic market.
Los Lagos and Los Ríos together represented 78.4% of national milk reception. Los Lagos remained the largest producing region, processing 1.0729bn litres, or 45.2% of the total received by large-scale processors. Its volume returned to the level recorded in 2023. Los Ríos processed 914.4m litres, an 11.7% increase from 2024.
Biobío recorded a 36.2% increase after declining the previous year, while Ñuble grew by 7%. Sergio Niklitschek, president of the Chilean Dairy Consortium, said the 2025 figures showed “a dynamic dairy sector that reached a historic production record”. Fedeleche general manager Carlos Arancibia cited forage conditions in the main producing regions, as well as changes in technical efficiency, feeding, genetics and milking infrastructure.
Higher raw-material availability was accompanied by increased production of several processed goods. Cheese output rose 6.7% to 113.5m kilograms, and butter production increased by 5%. Condensed-milk production climbed from about 41m kg to 53m kg, a 28.8% rise. Manjar output grew 2.4%, fluid milk 3.5% and yoghurt 0.4%.
Exports grew faster than domestic production. Shipments equivalent to about 491m litres of milk increased by 29% in 2025, compared with the 5.9% rise in national milk reception. Guillermo Iturrieta, Exporlac’s president, said imports of milk powder and cheese supplied part of the domestic market, allowing a greater share of locally produced milk to be used in exported products. He said the sector’s strategy remained focused on value-added goods and on using the nearly 40 markets open to Chilean dairy products.
The average nominal price paid to farmers reached 446.39 pesos per litre in 2025, up 2.5% from the 2024 average. Apparent domestic dairy availability fell 1.9%, to 136.8 litres equivalent per person from 139.4 litres. CIL said the measure was not necessarily the same as actual consumption: it is calculated by adding imports to national reception, subtracting exports and dividing the result by the population. Fedeleche projects industrial milk reception to rise by 4% to 5% in 2026 and has identified labour availability, feed costs and environmental requirements as challenges.
