UK food exports fall but China brings home the bacon
British food and drinks exports fell for the first time since 2015 in the first half of the year, with pork the only product to see a jump in sales due to massive exports to China.
A new report from the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) showed that exports fell 13.8 per cent year-on-year to £9.7bn.
Only three of the UK’s top 20 export markets saw sales increase. China saw growth of 0.3 per cent, Canada 6.7 per cent, and Norway a whopping 46.9 per cent.
China’s sales increase was largely driven by its taste for British bacon, with pork sales of over £132m in the first half of the year.
This accounted for over a third of the UK’s total pork exports, which grew 17.5 per cent in the period to hit £300m.
Since 2018 China has been ravaged by African swine fever, a viral disease which has swept through the country’s farms and decimated its pork output.
The outbreak is one of the biggest animal-borne epidemics in history, and has killed over 100m pigs.
The disease has proved a boon for UK food producers. In its annual results, FTSE 250 firm Cranswick said that exports to the far east saw revenues increase 122 per cent last year.
The FDF said that the UK-Japan preferential trade agreement, which was announced earlier this month, presents a key opportunity for exporters.
Japan is currently the world’s largest net importer of agrifood and drink, and was the UK’s 19th biggest market in the first half of the year at a value of £124.5m.
Dominic Goudie, Head of International Trade, FDF, said: “A fall in exports in the first half of 2020 demonstrates the huge challenge currently facing UK food and drink exporters.
“We also have serious concerns about our access to existing EU trade agreements, with more than £1.7bn of UK exports at risk where continuity deals haven’t been agreed.
“However, there remain many opportunities overseas as we navigate our way through economic recovery, strengthen our resilience as an industry, and build relationships through new future trade agreements such as with Japan – the world’s biggest net importer of food and drink.