Products including whisky, chocolate and cheese remain popular with EU customers but overall food export volumes to the bloc fell to 6.37bn kg in 2024, representing a 34% decline compared with 2019 levels, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) found
British food and drink exports to the EU have tumbled by more than a third since Brexit, according to new trade body figures highlighting how bureaucratic barriers have changed the relationship between the UK and its most important trading partner.
Products including whisky, chocolate and cheese remain popular with EU customers but overall food export volumes to the bloc fell to 6.37bn kg in 2024, representing a 34% decline compared with 2019 levels, the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) found.
While some of the fall in exports since the UK left the union in January 2020 can be attributed to global events including the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, the FDF’s latest trade snapshot reveals other European countries including the Netherlands, Germany and Italy have increased their export volumes since 2020. The trade body has blamed post-Brexit trading arrangements for the slump in UK exports.
The total volume of food and drink imports to the UK rose to their highest ever level last year, at a time when British farmers are warning that a “cashflow crisis” and series of pressures including planned tax changes, bad weather and rising costs are squeezing domestic food production.
Imports of food and drink were worth £63.1bn in 2024, as imports from the EU rose by 3.3% compared with a year earlier, and increased by 7.4% from non-EU countries.
The EU remains the UK’s most important trading partner in the food and drink sector, accounting for almost two-thirds (61.8%) of exports and three-quarters (75.6%) of imports, worth nearly £45bn in 2024.
Imports of EU produce rose despite the introduction of new border checks for arrivals of animal and plant products from the EU in April 2024.
Food and drink imports entering the UK are still subject to fewer checks than UK businesses exporting equivalent products, the FDF said. It found that the UK’s small and medium-sized exporters are finding it particularly challenging to meet the EU’s “more stringent” import requirements.
The FDF is calling on the government to work with the food and drink industry to take a strategic approach to trade relations with the EU and to address “unnecessary barriers” to trade with Europe.
“These latest figures show the stark reality for the UK’s 12,500 food and drink businesses who are struggling to deal with the complexity and bureaucracy that comes when trading with Europe,” said Balwinder Dhoot, the director of industry growth and sustainability at the FDF.
“Government must prioritise working with the EU, and our industry, to remove as many of these barriers as possible.”
Global food export volumes increased by nearly 6% in 2024 compared with a year earlier, the FDF found, as the UK began to see the benefits of free trade agreements. In the first full year after the UK-Australia trade deal came into force, the value of UK exports to Australia increased by 9% to £429.5m in 2024.
While Ireland and France remain the UK’s largest individual export markets, the US has climbed into third place after strong growth last year, as classic British products such as tea and biscuits prove popular.
The FDF is hoping that a future UK-US trade deal would prevent the food and drink sector being caught up in any future tariffs, as Donald Trump threatened a 200% tariff on wine and champagne from EU countries on Thursday, in the latest threat of escalation in the global trade war started by the US president.
