Dairy exports to EU slump by grim 90%

DAIRY exports to the EU have slumped by 90 per cent, according to figures published yesterday.

Data from the Food and Drink Federation makes grim reading for farmers and producers in the West. The figures for the first quarter of 2021 show overall exports of food and drink fell to £3.7 billion from £5.1 billion a year earlier.

Sales to non-EU countries overtook exports to the EU, but it was a case of exports to the EU falling off a cliff in the first few months after Brexit rather than sales elsewhere growing massively. Sales to non-EU countries made up 55% of all UK food and drink exports in the first three months of 2021 compared to less than 40% a year earlier.

However, this is not thanks to any major boom in exports to non-EU countries, which only rose by 0.3%, the group said.

“The loss of £2 billion of exports to the EU is a disaster for our industry, and is a very clear indication of the scale of losses that UK manufacturers face in the longer-term due to new trade barriers with the EU,” said the federation’s head of international trade Dominic Goudie.

Some of the drop will be down to EU importers having stockpiled goods from the UK ahead of Brexit, the Food and Drink Exporters Association’s John Whitehead said.

Yet, he said, “significant business has been lost as a direct result of the additional bureaucracy, customs delays and costs of trading with the EU”.

The hardest hit sector was dairy exporters. Milk and cream exports to the EU dropped more than 90% while cheese exports fell by two-thirds.

Across the three months food and drink exports to Ireland dropped by nearly 71%.