Market potential and the need to commercialize local dairy products in Iran

In the last three decades, the government support for investment in the livestock sector has led to the expansion of the dairy industry and its products in the country. However, the lack of attention paid to indigenous livestock products, including traditional dairy products, has led to the underdevelopment of this part of the rural and nomadic industries and even the loss of indigenous knowledge to produce some of these products. The Animal Science Research Institute of Iran and affiliated research centers have made great efforts to identify and introduce local dairy products in the country. The results of these researches has led to the improvement of the quality and safety of some of these products, including lighvan cheese, siahmazgi cheese, and koze’ei cheese, and so on. Although in many provinces of the country, there are various local dairy products with a history of several hundred years of production, but not introducing them to the consumers and the industry has endangered their continued production. In this article, based on 30 years of applied research carried out in the Animal Science Research Institute of Iran and affiliated research centers, efforts have been made to introduce these products while identifying initiatives, opportunities, and market potential for commercialization of these products in the country. Meanwhile, a mechanism for the commercialization of these products to the local dairy market has been proposed. The authors believe that the commercial production of these products will promote entrepreneurship and ensure the quality of local/indigenous products and the economic prosperity of the villagers and the nomadic community.