- September 29, 2026
- 12:38 pm
- World News
FERMA and Roshen on our shelves, Ukrainian butter in 25-kilogram blocks for the food industry, hundreds of tons of deliveries over eight months. Ukraine is losing export revenue, while Israel ranks among the top three largest buyers of its butter. How much do we buy, where is Ukrainian production sold, and what share of the Israeli market can it occupy by the end of 2026?
Author: Stas Shifer
From January to August 2026, Ukraine exported 6.2 thousand tons of butter — 47.5% less than in the same period last year. In monetary terms, the decline is even more significant: export revenue decreased by 59.4%, to 34.4 million dollars. These data from the State Customs Service of Ukraine were published by AgroTimes on September 22.
For Israel, there is a detail in this statistic. While Ukrainian producers are losing foreign markets, our country remains one of the main buyers of their products.
In the top three are Moldova with a share of 44.8%, Azerbaijan with 16.3%, and Israel with 10.1%. These three destinations account for more than 71% of Ukrainian butter exports.
And it’s not about any special deliveries exclusively for people from Ukraine. Ukrainian butter is already sold in regular Israeli supermarkets, under brands whose names do not necessarily tell every buyer about the country of origin.
How much Ukrainian butter does Israel receive
If we apply Israel’s share of 10.1% to the total Ukrainian export revenue, it amounts to approximately 3.47 million dollars for the first eight months of 2026.
The average export cost of a ton of Ukrainian butter during this period was about 5550 dollars. At this price, Israeli purchases correspond to approximately 625 tons.
Here, a caveat is necessary: this is an editorial calculation, not a published separate customs statistic in kilograms. Specific Israeli contracts may differ in price from the overall Ukrainian export figure.
But the trade direction is well-traced in previous years.
According to World Bank WITS data, in 2023, Israel imported about 1069 tons of butter and other dairy fats from Ukraine, worth 6.44 million dollars. In 2024, deliveries decreased to 407 tons for 2.93 million dollars. This accounted for 7.3% of the total Israeli import of the corresponding commodity group by physical volume.
In 2025, purchases increased again. Ukraine supplied Israel with butter and dairy fats worth approximately 6.12 million dollars, with the total Israeli import of this category at 50.8 million. The Ukrainian share reached approximately 12% in monetary terms.
An important detail for understanding the statistics: the international customs group HS 0405 combines butter and other dairy fats. This is not exclusively the familiar 200-gram packs that Israelis buy for breakfast.
Therefore, Ukraine’s share in imports and its share in Israel’s total consumption are not the same.
FERMA and Roshen: what exactly do Ukrainians supply to our supermarkets
One of the most noticeable Ukrainian brands is FERMA, a product of Terra Food. In Israel, natural butter with 82.5% fat content, made from pasteurized cream and packaged in 200-gram packs, is sold.
In the CHP price comparison catalog, it is listed under the name חמאה FERMA 82.5%. Its barcode is 4820217240114.
The product is featured in the catalogs of Shufersal, Carrefour, Victory, Yohananof, Keshet Teamim, Tiv Taam, and other chains. Availability naturally depends on the specific branch. September offers include prices around 9–10 shekels per pack, and noticeably higher.
The second example is Roshen 82.5%. In Israel, under this name, two variants of Ukrainian butter in 200-gram packaging are sold. The composition indicates pasteurized cream, the country of production is Ukraine.
Their presence on Israeli shelves is not news of recent weeks. As early as spring 2025, Ynet reported on the spread of Ukrainian butter FERMA and Roshen, which was gradually replacing more expensive European brands. The importer was Diler B.M.D. International.
But there is another part of the trade that you won’t see in supermarkets.
The Israeli company KFI offers Ukrainian unsalted butter with 82% fat content, produced by PJSC Ternopil Dairy Factory.
The specification indicates consumer packages of 200 grams and industrial blocks of 25 kilograms. The latter are intended for enterprises using butter in the production of other products. These can be confectionery, bakery products, and ready-made food items.
The company also indicates ISO 22000 certification and Badatz Beit Yosef kashrut, including the “Chalav Yisrael” status for Passover. For kashrut-observant Israelis, this is significant information: “Chalav Yisrael” means milk production is controlled according to certain requirements of Jewish religious law.
Customs records provide additional confirmation that Ukraine supplies natural butter to Israel, not just dairy spreads. The documents include categories 0405101100 — butter in consumer packaging up to a kilogram, and 0405101900 — other forms of natural butter with a fat content not exceeding 85%. Separate batches of the second type reach 25 tons.
By the way, trade records do not automatically assert that each such batch had exactly 82.5% fat content. This is a characteristic of a specific product, not the entire Ukrainian export category.
What share of the Israeli market can Ukrainian butter capture
And here it is worth looking at Israel’s own figures.
According to a review by the Ministry of Agriculture, published by Calcalist on June 28, 2026, 15.8 thousand tons of butter were sold in Israel in 2025. Of these, 62% were table butter and 38% were for industrial consumption.
Moreover, these two segments are structured differently.
About 83% of table butter was produced directly in Israel, mainly by Tnuva. However, industrial production is much more dependent on external suppliers: imports provided 59% of the corresponding segment.
If the current pace of Ukrainian exports to Israel continues until the end of 2026, the volume of deliveries may amount to about 900–975 tons.
When compared to the full Israeli market of 2025, this is approximately 6% of annual consumption.
This is a forecast estimate, not an officially recorded share of Ukrainian butter in Israel. It assumes that deliveries will continue at approximately the same pace, and the overall volume of the Israeli market will not change significantly.
For scale — six percent means almost a thousand tons of butter per year. And this is a product that can end up not only directly in consumers’ refrigerators but also in Israeli food enterprises.
At the same time, a drop in the purchase price does not necessarily mean that butter becomes cheaper in the store. According to the same review by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, after the market opened to imports and state price control was lifted, the cost of imported butter for consumers rose from 37.6 shekels per kilogram in 2021 to 65.5 shekels in 2025.
The Ukrainian factory sells the product at one price. The Israeli buyer receives it after transportation, inspection, certification, storage, the work of the importer, and the retail network. The entire difference between these two prices is not always related to the producer itself.
This market feature NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency has already thoroughly analyzed in a material about the growth of Ukrainian dairy supplies: from January to July 2026, Israel purchased almost 10 million dollars of Ukrainian dairy products, but the expansion of imports does not yet guarantee lower prices for Israeli families.
Why Ukrainian butter is losing buyers even though production is growing
To understand what is happening, it is useful to return to the previous year.
In 2025, Ukraine exported about 15 thousand tons of butter, earning approximately 107 million dollars. This was a very noticeable growth compared to 2024. But already in 2026, the situation changed: demand in foreign markets weakened, and global prices went down.
At the Global Dairy Trade auction on September 15, butter prices fell by 5.7%, to 4760 dollars per ton. GDT is an international trading platform whose prices are used as one of the benchmarks for the global dairy market. This is not about the retail price of butter in Israel, but about large international contracts.
According to Ukrainian industry analysts, an important role was played by the increase in dairy product supply in the EU and other major producing regions, as well as the fall in prices for dairy fats. The European market no longer provides Ukrainian producers with the previous sales conditions. Even access within duty-free quotas does not solve the problem if the price offered by the buyer becomes unprofitable.
Against this backdrop, two figures are noteworthy.
In the first seven months of 2026, Ukraine exported 5.6 thousand tons of butter for 31.1 million dollars. In eight months — 6.2 thousand tons for 34.4 million. This means August added approximately 600 tons and 3.3 million dollars. July exports, for comparison, amounted to about 1070 tons.
At the same time, domestic production did not stop. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in the first half of the year, enterprises produced 40.8 thousand tons of butter, ghee, and other dairy fats of the corresponding category — 7.9% more than a year earlier.
It turns out to be not the most pleasant situation for the producer: more products are being produced, but selling abroad is becoming less and cheaper.
At the same time, Ukraine is sharply increasing purchases of imported dairy products. According to the Union of Dairy Enterprises of Ukraine, from January to August 2026, exports of all dairy products decreased by 20.5%, to 176.9 million dollars. Imports increased by 24.7%, to 247.2 million.
The trade balance shifted from a positive 24.1 million dollars a year earlier to a negative 70.3 million. And the import of butter itself in physical terms increased by 2.6 times. The share of butter and dairy fats in the August export revenue of the dairy industry, meanwhile, fell from 36% to 15%.
The situation itself does not mean that Ukrainian enterprises have stopped supplying the domestic market. Different categories of goods with various characteristics and prices are imported. But the previous trade structure is noticeably changing, and for processors, this is already a serious challenge.
Why for Israel this story is broader than one pack of butter
On our shelves, Ukrainian products are also present in other dairy categories. For example, on September 28, NANews reported on Russian strikes on the “Rud” enterprise in Zhytomyr, known for its kosher ice cream supplies to Israel.
This is another part of the same economic connection. Enterprises in Ukraine are trying to maintain production, export, and buyers under conditions of war, infrastructure damage, and additional logistics costs.
For Israel, Ukrainian butter is another source of imported products in a market where local producers maintain strong positions. For Ukraine, it is an opportunity to retain export sales when European prices and external competition force them to seek additional directions.
Can this affect prices in our stores? So far, there is no basis to promise this. Even an increase in supplies may remain unnoticed for the family budget if additional competition does not reach the final retail price.
However, the buyer can already see the result of this trade without any customs tables. Just look at a pack of FERMA or Roshen in a regular Israeli supermarket: natural butter, Ukrainian production, Israeli labeling, and kashrut.
And behind this small pack are quite tangible hundreds of tons of trade for both countries, which continue to cross borders even when the overall Ukrainian butter export falls by almost half.