Avonmore milk is now being sold in China, with the first cartons of milk spotted on supermarket shelves in Shanghai.

A UHT version of Ireland’s top selling milk brand is now available in select supermarkets in Shanghai. With very similar packaging to its Irish offering, the UHT milk is selling for in the region of €3/L.

According to Glanbia, the milk will be officially launched this month, but it has already been rolled out on supermarket shelves. A spokesperson for Glanbia said that that the milk is being processing at its plant in Monaghan.

“In April we opened a new state of the art UHT plant in Monaghan which is capable of producing long life liquid milk products for export to markets such as China.

“We are this month launching Avonmore UHT in Shanghai. We are also currently commencing  exporting UHT milk in one litre Tetra Packs to France, North Africa and the Mediterranean. This is the most advanced UHT plant in the wider region and will be developed over time to meet the needs of the international customer base we are building at the moment.” 

Last year it was announced that Glanbia had signed a deal with Shanghai-based Bright Foods to supply milk to its supermarkets.

While milk is not traditionally part of the Chinese diet a move in recent years towards a more western diet has seen the consumption of milk-based products increase significantly – by around 20% annually.