UK food and drink exports continue to grow in 2014
22 September 2014
UK food and drink exports continue to grow in 2014
Today, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has reported that UK food and non-alcoholic drink exports have continued to grow in 2014, rising to £6.5bn in the first six months of the year – an increase of 4.8% on the same period in 2013.
Exports performed well in both non-EU markets (+12%) and in the EU (+2.5%), despite pressures such as stronger sterling and falling EU GDP working against British exporters.
FDF's latest update also found that the food and non-alcoholic drink trade balance improved by 4.9% to a deficit of £12bn – a welcome news in contrast to the trade balance for all UK products worsening by 84% in the first half of 2014. Including alcoholic drinks, total food and drink exports were down 0.5% on 2013, largely due to a rare decline in whisky exports as growth slowed in Asia and other leading markets.
Ireland and France remain the UK's biggest food and drink export markets by value. By value gained however, Algeria shot into second place as exports of skimmed milk powder (+£37m) and cereals (+13m) drove a +429% increase in sales to the market.
Value added products performed well in both the EU (+4.7%) and non-EU (+10.2%) and the top five best performing value added products generated export gains of £208m.
Report highlights
Top product categories
Salmon: +31% to £261m Chocolate: +1% to £253m Cheese: +12% to £249m Breakfast cereals: -2% to £189m Soft drinks: 0% to £188m
Top performing markets
Algeria: +429% to £61m Portugal: +45% to £49m Hong Kong: +28% to £94m Poland: +26% to £122m Norway: +26% to £80m
To help boost international trade, FDF and Open to Export have launched Food Drink Export Month on opentoexport.com. A joint initiative between Open to Export, Government and industry, the Food and Drink Export Month runs from 15 September – 10 October and features free-of-charge live webinars, guides and case studies, designed to help small and medium-sized food and drink companies grow their exports business.
FDF's Economic and Commercial Services Director, Steve Barnes, commented: "Against a backdrop of challenging conditions in food retail in the UK and overall goods exports falling, food and non-alcoholic drink exports continue to grow well and individual products to certain markets are experiencing rapid growth."
"Our brands have been working hard to develop new opportunities in international markets and to help businesses boost exports further we have been working with Government and others to introduce a raft of new resources and expert advice on opentoexport.com this autumn."
Notes for editors
- The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) is the voice of the food and drink manufacturing industry – the UK's largest manufacturing sector.
- Full export snapshot – collected by FDF from HMRC
- Food Drink Export Month is running from 15 September – 17 October 2014 on Open to Export: to help food and drink businesses boost exports
- Case studies are also available featuring successful British exporters.
More information
Contact Marita Upeniece, Communications Division, at: Marita.Upeniece@fdf.org.uk, or 0207 420 7140.
For FDF's policy positions and background on key issues, go to our Policy section.
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