British Food and drink exports break records

Britain’s food and drink exporters can expect a further record-breaking year in 2008 following their outstanding achievements in 2007, which saw sales in excess of £11bn - growing ahead of imports for the first time in five years.

Exports amounted to an impressive £11.45bn in 2007, according to the latest figures from Food from Britain (FFB) extracted from HM Revenue and Customs data. This was 9.1% up on the figures for 2006. FFB predicts exports will reach £12.5bn in 2008.

The results for 2007 were achieved in spite of the resurgence of foot and mouth disease (FMD), which hit meat exports last year. And it isn’t just down to growing demand for perennial favourites such as whisky, smoked salmon, biscuits and preserves.

The best growth sectors were meat (worth £864M, up 13%), followed by dairy - mainly cheese - (£805M, up 12%), and the cereals - bulk cereals, breakfast cereals and bakery products - (£1.36bn) and drinks (£4.1bn), both up by 10%. Although exports in 2007 grew ahead of imports there remains a trade gap, which has risen to around £15bn, reported FFB.

All major product categories witnessed positive results during the year, with the exception of soft drink exports, which declined by 12.7%, mainly due to decreased sales of carbonated beverages to the EU and US. According to FFB’s head of research Chris Brockman, the UK’s export success can be put down to its reputation for innovation, with growing demand for both indulgent and health and wellbeing products.

Poultry meat was the UK’s largest individual export product, valued at £200.4M, with strong growth to Europe. Despite the problems of FMD, beef recaptured lost export markets, although sales at £125M were still well below the figure of £600M in the mid 1990s before Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) hit exports. Total UK exports of fish and seafood amounted to over £1bn in 2007, increasing by 5% over the previous year.

The EU takes around two-thirds of the UK’s total food and drink exports, with Ireland the biggest customer (£2.3bn, up 12.4%) and France number two at £1.4bn. Sales to France fell slightly, however, primarily due to the ban on lamb exports because of FMD. However, cheese exports to France were up by a whopping 25%. Countries with a high British expatriate population, not surprisingly, have high relatively high per capita demand for UK products.

Whisky represents the biggest contributor towards exports to other markets, notably in the US (the UK’s third biggest export market worth £916M) and the Far East.