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Walk into any British supermarket and you will be surrounded by European products, from Italian cheeses to French wines. Around 30% of all food consumed in the UK is imported from the EU, but for some foods, such as spinach and olives, the EU is practically the UK’s sole supplier.
With Boris Johnson claiming he will take Britain out of the EU by 31 October “do or die”, the UK’s reliance on EU food is a major risk. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, the UK would be obliged under World Trade Organization rules to impose average food import tariffs of 22% and conduct product inspections, leading to delays and shortening the shelf-life of products.
Despite Brexiters’ assurances of tariffless trade, a House of Lords inquiry concluded: “… in either a ‘deal’ or ‘no-deal’ scenario, Brexit will result in some additional border checks and documentation requirements for food imported from the EU to the UK. These will increase the time it takes for food to reach shop shelves and result in additional costs.”
In 2016 more than £30.3bn of Britain’s food imports and £12.3bn of its food exports were with the EU, totalling almost £1,300 of trade every second and highlighting the scale of economic disruption on both sides if the UK crashes out without a deal.
Almost all of the spinach, chillies and tomatoes consumed in the UK are imported from the EU
For some food types, EU imports make up as much as 100% of their availability, meaning disruption and price increases for those goods are almost inevitable without a deal. Analysis of production and trade data for unprocessed food – fruit, vegetables and meat – reveals that 100% of the olives consumed in Britain come from the EU, 99% of spinach and 92% of peaches and nectarines.
The other corners of the chart below represent, in the bottom left, foods almost entirely produced in the UK – whole potatoes, carrots and eggs – and in the bottom right, foods we predominantly important from outside the EU – ginger, bananas and pineapples.
Will the UK be able to replace EU imports with non-EU imports?
In the long term, lower tariffs on agricultural produce from outside of the EU would make them more attractive. Some of the highest EU tariffs for external produce are on beef and dairy products, for which Australia and New Zealand are potential future sources. Likewise, a reduction in tariffs on imports of citrus fruit and grapes would make South Africa an obvious trading partner.
But there are lots of items that could not be easily sourced from outside the EU, and the relatively small size of the UK’s market could result in an uphill battle when striking deals with larger suppliers. Citing the example of citrus fruit, Prof Tim Benton says: “Peru and Chile are the most resilient alternatives. These producers, as well as being very distant, typically supply China and the US. Against these competitors the UK is viewed negatively as a low volume and high specification customer.”
More than anything else, the UK government’s vow that future food imports must meet the same UK standards could be the biggest blocker. George Eustice, a minister for environment, food and rural affairs until February 2019, told a House of Lords inquiry into Brexit and agriculture that “beef produced in Brazil, Uruguay and the US is cheaper than in the EU and, in particular, in the UK, but that comes at the price of using hormones in beef and all sorts of approaches that probably would cause consumer reaction here, and the quality of the product is far inferior to what we have”.
Could the UK be self-sufficient in food production?
The UK’s self-sufficiency in food production has been declining over the last two decades, and now sits at 61%. Changing consumer habits have partly fuelled the change, with perishable fresh food expected to be on supermarket shelves all year round.
While it is likely that Brexit could boost the production of British pig products and even some fruit and vegetables, the UK Trade Policy Observatory found that “this growth in domestic production will come at the expense of higher domestic prices for consumers”.
Ironically, some of the biggest challenges to the UK producing more of its own food arise from leaving the EU: rising labour costs due to the end of freedom of movement and a dependence on importing raw materials from the EU for production.
Even with immediate technological investment to ease the labour constraints, it would take some time for domestic production to fill the gaps in the supply chain. As Terry Jones, from the National Farmers’ Union, made clear: “Farming operates on long timescales … the reality of an immediate production response is pretty negligible”.
All of the trade and production data is sourced from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The analysis is based on 2016 data, which was the most recent dataset available at the time of publication. Trade figures have been converted from dollars to pounds using the average exchange rate in December 2016 of 1.2399 USD per GBP. UK food self-sufficiency data was sourced from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
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