Mechanisms for ensuring the competitiveness of milk processing production in the regions

The article delves into the urgent need to ensure Ukraine’s milk processing industry’s competitiveness in the context of European trends. It identifies the main structural shifts that have taken place in the development of Ukraine’s dairy industry in recent years. These shifts, including the reduction of milk production volumes and the shift in the production specialization of agricultural formations towards the plant industry, the increase in the share of small-scale dairy production, and the loss of the production potential of dairy cattle breeding and fodder production, pose a significant threat. The article also analyzes separate factors that contribute to the competitive advantages of dairy companies on the market, such as price factors, product quality, and prices for material and technical resources, including feed. In the context of competitiveness, a cluster analysis of the regions of Ukraine was carried out according to the level of self-sufficiency in dairy products and food security of the population by given types of food products. According to the results, groups of administrative regions with a critical level of consumption of dairy products were identified. Among them: Zakarpattia, Chernivtsi, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kharkiv regions. In these areas, measures to ensure the competitiveness of dairy production are of exceptional importance. A set of mechanisms for ensuring the competitiveness of milk processing production in the regions is proposed. According to the nature and features of their action, the mechanisms were systematized into two groups: organizational and managerial and economic. By each group of mechanisms for ensuring the competitiveness of milk processing production, a set of tools was proposed to obtain competitive advantages for dairy companies, considering the conditions of sustainable development. In the context of leading European trends and future priorities for the sustainable development of the dairy sector of Ukraine, the main tools were identified as innovation and digitalization, organic production and eco-branding, creation of regional closed dairy food chains, and state support for “green” transformations in the industry.