Food export recovery continues
LAST YEAR‘S recovery in food and drink exports have continued this year, according to market development consultancy Food from Britain.
Sales of food and drink from the UK were up 1% during the first six months of 2004.
FFB predicts this upward trend will continue and that the market will finish just below the £10bn mark for the full 12 months, at £9.9bn.
The continued positive outlook, despite some on-going challenges in both markets and product sectors, demonstrates the robustness of food and drink exports as a whole over the last two years, FFB says.
The food and drink sector outperformed total UK exports during the first half of 2004. Total UK exports were down 1%.
Added-value products have continued to surge ahead and are now driving the UK‘s food and drink market, according to FFB‘s latest figures.
Added-value food and drink exports until the end of June were up 3% and worth £2.89bn.
The top ten UK export markets from January to June 2004 were Ireland £813.8m, France £573.9m, USA £396m, Spain £351.6m, Germany £277.6m, Netherlands £204m, Italy £177.2m, Belgium £171.5m, Greece £91.5m and Japan £80m.