UK is missing the boat

The UK food and drink industry needs to shed its island mentality and become more competitive on the world stage, according to the head of the government’s export agency, Food from Britain (FfB).

“Until this happens we are unlikely to maximise opportunities overseas and significantly grow our exports beyond the current £10bn barrier,” said chief executive David McNair.

His criticism came despite a 3.1% year-on-year increase in UK food and drink exports recorded by FfB in the first half of the year to £4.65bn.

Richard Bruce, the chief executive of the consultancy Hartington, which recently set up a company to broker two-way trade between the UK and China, echoed McNair.

“There’s a degree of reluctance to get involved. They tend not to be very adventurous in looking at new territories,” said Bruce.

He added that, in developing markets such as China and India, UK firms were in danger of losing out to more aggressive foreign rivals, especially from France.

The latest FfB figures showed that more than £1.4bn of exports in the first half of this year was of a single product - Scotch whisky, with sales up by 1% year-on-year.

Overall, sales grew strongly in both established and emerging markets, said FfB.

“There are now more opportunities than ever for UK food and drink manufacturers across the world in all product categories,” said McNair. “With this country’s trade deficit continuing to widen and UK retail margins getting increasingly smaller, UK companies literally cannot afford to ignore the business benefits of spreading risks when trading in this increasingly global marketplace.”FfB said that often companies it approached with the offer of export help were simply not interested.

UK exports into the rest of the European Union (EU) were 3.6% higher at £3.1bn, with a 6% rise in sales to Ireland, the sector’s biggest overseas market.

There were strong performances in Eastern Europe, with sales to Latvia up 85% to £4.8m and to Poland up 51% at £24.8m.

Outside the EU, sales were 2% higher, including 16% higher in Asia-Oceania and 10% up in the Middle East, although North America took 3% fewer exports by value.

But other European countries did better than the Brits, including France and Germany, which each exported twice as much food and drink as the UK.