Market report

Korea Butter Import Market

Butter and processed butter imported into South Korea — origin share, supplier base and month-by-month shipments.

Updated Aug 2026 · from official Korean import declarations

Report period
Jul 2025Aug 2026
14 months of declarations
Total shipments
2,605
import declarations 59%
vs. previous 6 months (909)
Suppliers
89
overseas manufacturers 19%
vs. previous 6 months (70)
Korean buyers
105
importing companies 23%
vs. previous 6 months (80)
New entrants
5
first-time suppliers
first shipped in the last 3 months
Key takeaways
  • Korea logged 1,444 butter import declarations in the last six months, up 59% on the six months before.
  • France is the largest origin with 34.6% of all shipments (902).
  • Italy is growing fastest among established origins — up 13% over the last three months against the three before.
  • Australia is losing ground, down 61% over the same window.
  • 5 overseas suppliers shipped butter to Korea for the first time in the last three months.

Monthly shipments — butter

59%
last 6 months vs
the 6 before

Each declaration is one customs filing, not one container — a useful proxy for how often a market is being served rather than for tonnage.

Where it comes from

France34.6%
New Zealand34.4%
United States12.6%
Australia3.9%
Italy3.7%
Netherlands2.6%
Germany2.4%
Belgium2.1%
Denmark1.1%
United Kingdom0.7%

Origin share and momentum

OriginShipmentsShare3m vs prior 3m
France90234.6% 25%
New Zealand89534.4% 18%
United States32712.6% 23%
Australia1023.9% 61%
Italy973.7% 13%
Netherlands672.6%
Germany632.4%
Belgium542.1%
Denmark291.1%
United Kingdom190.7%

Growth is suppressed where the earlier window holds fewer than 20 shipments — a move from three to nine is not a trend.

Top suppliers to Korea

#Overseas manufacturerShips
1FONTERRA LIMITED800
2ISIGNY SAINTE-MERE175
3WEST POINT DAIRY PRODUCTS123
4ARMOR PROTEINES121
5SOCIETE BEURRIERE D'ISIGNY107
6CALIFORNIA DAIRIES INC.77
7FLECHARD LAITERIE DU PONT MORIN75
8ELVIR - ELLE & VIRE PRODUITS LAITIERS67
9EURIAL64
10UCLAB INDUSTRIE63
This section is locked

105 Korean companies import butter. This report does not name them.

KoreanImportData tracks every one of them — who they buy from, which origins they switched to, how often they ship and when they last imported. Search the full register by product, company or country, in English.

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These twelve are the biggest categories, not the only ones. The register covers every food, beverage, nutraceutical and packaging item type Korea imports.

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Method and coverage

Figures are counts of individual import declarations lodged with the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, covering Jul 2025 to Aug 2026. This report covers the official item types Butter, Processed butter — matched on the declared item type only, never on product-name text, so unrelated goods cannot be pulled in by a keyword.

Origin is the declared country of manufacture, not the country the goods were shipped from, which can differ where a distributor re-exports.

Company and product names are translated or transliterated from the official Korean record and may be imperfect; the Korean record is authoritative. One manufacturer can appear under more than one plant or spelling.

The register is reloaded monthly and this page is rebuilt with it. Figures here will differ from a report you read last month, by design.

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