Whisky and salmon from Scotland led the way in exports surge.
The Food and Drink Federation and Santander have launched a new report highlighting the growth opportunities and challenges for the food and drink sector for 2020.
In 2019, Scottish salmon enjoyed a 28.1 per cent increase in export value – with a 24.7 per cent increase in volume. It exported GBP 400 million worth of fish in H1 2019.
The Food and Drink Industry Report 2020 looked at exports and the developing markets of China and the USA and more, all of which have seen considerable year-on-year growth.
“All of the UK’s highest value exported products have grown in H1 2019, with whisky, salmon, wine, gin, and pork increasing by over 10 per-cent on the same period last year. Salmon, beef and gin have also all seen volume growth above 10 per-cent,” it wrote.
USA
Exports to the USA have grown over the past ten years by 147 per-cent from GBP 0.9 billion in 2008 to GBP 2.2 billion in 2018 driven by strong growth in a diverse range of products. Under under than half the sales value in 2018 came from by salmon at GBP 143 million. To date, H1 2019’s data from HMRC shows export sales of GBP 97 million.
China
“Strong economic growth and increasing urbanisation in China are driving rapid growth in the middle class and with it the purchasing power of its 1.4bn consumers. While current rapid UK export growth to China is dominated by commodity sales, there is also a significant opportunity to grow sales of premium products, with an emphasis on provenance, quality, health and sustainability,” wrote the FDA.
The top five products exported to China in 2018 were pork (GP 77 million, up 11 per cent), whisky (GBP 77 million, up 25 per-cent) and salmon (GBP 73 million, up 4 per-cent). 2019’s HMRC 2019 H1 data shows that GBP 28.6 million worth of salmon has been exported to China.
