Rabobank's new report listing the top 20 largest dairy companies in the world, ranked by dairy product turnover, reveals Nestle and Danone are holding down the top two spots again this year.

The report, authored by Rabobank’s Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory group, shows 18 of the 20 companies are headquartered in the EU, North America, Japan, or New Zealand.

However, the biggest strides up the rankings this year were made by Chinese giants Yili and Mengniu, riding the wave of domestic market sales growth.  The report says that in fact most of the growth prospects for dairy companies lie beyond Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development boundaries.

Rabobank's latest global dairy top 20 report highlights merger and acquisition activity.

The report highlights several significant mergers and acquisitions:

-Nestle's acquisition of Pfizer's nutrition business, focused on infant nutrition products

-Lactalis's acquisition of Parmalat

-FrieslandCampina's acquisition of Alaska Milk in the Philippines

-Arla's proposed merger with Milk Link in the UK and Milch-Union Hocheifel in Germany

-Canadian-based Saputo's acquisition of the U.S. cheese maker DCI

-Muller's acquisition of Rober Wiseman Daries in the UK and PepsiCo in the U.S.

The ability of these companies to respond to changing global market dynamics will determine their prospects for survival and success in coming years. Rabobank expects to see dairy companies continue to vigorously pursue merger and acquisition targets in the next 12 months as they jostle to position themselves for growth and profit in a changing market environment.