Good news for food and drink exporters yesterday: the world, it seems, is buying more British produce – with food and non-alcoholic drink exports up 5% to £12.8bn, following a flat 2012.

Factoring in alcohol, exports were up 3.7% to £19.4bn, according to a new report from the FDF based on HRMC data.

Economic recovery in the Eurozone played its part in boosting the performance of UK produce in 2013, and indeed, the EU stills soaks up 74.9% of our food and drink exports. But trade with non-EU countries also jumped 11.5% in value in 2013, to £3.3bn. The most eye-catching growth was in China, where exports grew a whopping 82% to £210m – much of this down to a deal struck in 2012 to open up China to British pork.

The government has been proactive in engineering similar trade deals in the last year – from a pigs’ trotters export agreement with China to a trade mission to Russia (though one wonders about the prospects for this market in light of recent events). The effect of these deals – and the lifting of the US’s long-standing ban on beef imports from the EU – may well be reflected in next year’s report.

All this activity, and the measures announced in last week’s Budget to double the amount of lending to exporters (and lower the interest rates on those loans), shows the government making positive moves to back British business and products abroad.

And if there’s one product that stood out in the FDF report yesterday, it was salmon, exports of which leapt 38% to £465m. Sales of fresh Scottish salmon to the US grew £43m to £199m (the biggest value gain of any export to any market); while sales of salmon to China grew £23m to £50m, partly due to a relaxation of import rules there. France, still the UK’s second biggest export market after Ireland, bought 23% more salmon than in 2012.

“Quality and Scottish provenance” were key to the success of its salmon, according to Scott Landsburgh, chief executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation, which puts the global retail value of Scottish farmed salmon at £1bn. “These impressive figures are the result of the fantastic reputation our salmon enjoys around the world. These figures just scratch the surface of people looking for premium and healthy foods. There is plenty of scope to share in this rapidly expanding market.”

(Incidentally, exports of that other great Scottish product – whisky – were flat on 2012, at £4.4bn.)

An encouraging picture overall, then – though what might happen to this picture should Scotland vote for independence provides some food for thought (as well as for export).

 

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