Iran completed a deal with the US, France, Germany, Russia and China on Tuesday to reduce its nuclear infrastructure significantly. In return the US, European Union and United Nations have vowed to gradually lift economic sanctions imposed on the country in recent years.

Euromonitor said the removal of US and EU sanctions on Iran would open up the tenth largest growing dairy market globally.

Euromonitor food analyst Lianne van den Bos wrote: “Considering the fact that the Russian market is currently inaccessible to many dairy exporters with Putin’s extension of the important ban on dairy products, Iran could be a potential market for dairy products initially intended for the Russian market”.

There is serious overproduction of dairy products in exporting countries at present, so Iran could be a target market for these products.

Internally, it is high on the agenda, but no change can be certain until the details of the agreement’s implementation are worked out and the sanctions are officially lifted.

Iran has a young population with around 40% of its 80 million inhabitants aged between 15 and 34. They have an increasingly open attitude to packaged food, which makes them a huge untapped market.

Iranians already consume dairy diets with cheese and yogurt as their largest categories, but these are home-produced at present.

There has already has been a shift from unpackaged to packaged foods, but more work will have to be done to convince Iranians to consume more dairy in packaged form.