Lactalis Italia: turnover up 4.5 per cent, but margins are being held back by milk prices at record highs

“2025 was a challenging year characterised by a sharp rise in raw material costs, which contributed to the increase in turnover (3.3 billion, +4.5 per cent) but had a negative impact on profitability (EBITDA fell by 0.8 per cent). In 2026, a concerted effort is needed across the entire supply chain to work, with a sense of responsibility, to bring milk production volumes back into balance with processing requirements, whilst continuing a path of growth that, in recent years, has created value for everyone.”

This is how Giovanni Pomella, CEO of Lactalis Italia , summarises the 2025 results . Pomella heads the Italian division of the French multinational Lactalis, which has 30 factories across the country and more than 5,000 employees, and boasts a diverse portfolio of both traditional and mass-market products. Indeed, alongside its range of PDO cheeses (from Parmigiano to Grana Padano, from Tuscan Pecorino to Gorgonzola), it owns highly popular brands such as Galbani, Santa Lucia, Vallelata, Invernizzi, Cademartori Zymil, Parmalat, Mandara and Ambrosi.

“2025 was a year,” explains Pomella, “in which the average milk price was the highest on record. Prices were close to 60 cents per litre. And PDO cheeses also reached record prices: 11 euros per kilo for 9-month-aged Grana Padano, and 14 for 12-month-aged Parmigiano Reggiano. These figures have resulted in the widest ever gap between the price of milk in Italia and the rest of Europe.” A trend that risks penalising not so much PDO products as the rest of Italia’s dairy production.

“The most telling example is that of mozzarella,” adds Pomella, “a product that no longer has an exclusive association with Italia, partly because it is now produced everywhere. There are factories producing mozzarella in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. It is a key product in the global dairy market, for which the price factor risks working against us. We need to work to maintain the positive trend of recent years, and to do so we need to rebalance the volumes of non-PDO raw materials to ensure they are in line with consumption and competitive in terms of added value; the risk is that these products will end up being pushed out of the market. Meanwhile, it is essential for us to continue exporting these products, which are also significant in terms of volume.”

In this context, the downward trend in milk consumption, which fell by a further 3 per cent in 2025. “This is a trend that has been going on for some time,” adds Pomella. “We are trying to respond through innovation, drawing inspiration from international experience and focusing on fresh dairy yoghurt, which has replaced milk elsewhere. With this in mind, last year we launched, in partnership with Parmalat, Latte Barista, which allows you to recreate a café-style cappuccino at home, as well as cocoa- and coffee-flavoured milks under the Zymil brand.”