Consumption of cheese and butter has increased steadily in South Korea in recent years as a growing number of people consume Western food, data showed Wednesday.

Consumption of cheese rose to 140,769 tons last year from 132,593 tons in 2015, 117,827 tons in 2014 and 107,558 in 2013, according to the Statistics Korea data.

Butter consumption also surged to 11,583 tons last year, up from 10,206 tons in 2015 and 9,182 tons in 2014.

Most of the cheese and butter has been imported from abroad, with only 20.7 percent of cheese and 20.5 percent of butter being produced domestically last year.

Overall milk production, meanwhile, dropped 4.5 percent to 2.07 million tons last year from 2.16 million tons a year earlier. The figure was 2.21 million tons in 2014.

Consumption of white milk, however, soared 2.8 percent to 1.38 million tons last year from 1.34 million tons in 2015.

The surge was due to the dairy industry shying away from making powdered milk amid falling dry milk sales, an industry source said.

The increase was helped by aggressive marketing efforts by companies.

Production of powered whole milk and dried skim milk declined 15.4 percent and 50.0 percent, respectively, last year from a year earlier. (Yonhap)