Major Trends in Domestic Cheeses and Cheese Products Range Building
The building of cheeses range in demand of the consumers is influenced by a number of factors. They include standard of living, culture of consumption, national preference, advances in production and packaging technology and so on. The results of the studies enabled the authors to draw a conclusion that in the range of cheeses offered to Russian consumers semi-hard cheeses prevail (Rossiysky, Kostromskoy, Gollandsky and processed cheeses). Their share is more than 65 %. The proportion of cheese of thermo-mechanical processing (Suluguni cheese, mozzarella, and others) does not exceed 15%. Soft cheeses (Lubitelsky, Slavyansky and others) amount to about 7%, hard cheeses share (Swiss cheese, Mentalescape, Sovetsky) is not more than 1.5%. Cheese products share in the total output is 11.5%. The authors point out three main groups of cheeses taking consideration the consumers demand: primary consumption group (Rossiysky, Kostromskoy, Dutch, processed, etc); additional consumption group (Alterman, Maasdam, Lambert, Swiss) and elite consumption group (Roquefort, Dor blue, Grana Padano, Parmesan). According to commerce experts and cheese producers, the main objectives of the assortment policy of cheese producers should be a) preservation of traditional technologies b) increased t production of soft cheese c) development and introduction of intensive technologies of semi-hard and hard cheeses production d) production of cheeses with a mixed composition of fat phase e) creation of technologies to produce cheeses with health-promoting effect properties f) development of competitive technologies of processed cheese production; g) significant cheese quality improvement; h) organization of large-scale whey processing;i) learning technology of cheeses processing that are in demand abroad and in Russia to solve the problem of import substitution.