Collection
Overseas trade
Statistics about overseas trade in food, feed and drink.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) uses figures collected by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to produce summary statistics on UK imports and exports of food, feed and drink. Detailed HMRC figures are available on their trade statistics website www.uktradeinfo.com.
Defra analyses include:
- a long term series showing the annual value of UK imports, exports and balance of trade for total food, feed and drink from 1936
- detailed figures on the value and volume of UK imports and exports of food, feed and drink by indigeneity, degree of processing and commodity type, from 1988
- a series showing the UK’s annual food production to supply ratio (commonly referred to as the “self-sufficiency” ratio) from 1956
- ‘Country Focus Papers’, giving an overview for China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Russia of economic performance, the export position of the UK and other countries and discussion of obstacles to trade. These are available from the National Archive.
See also Defra’s publication ‘Agriculture in the United Kingdom‘ for a summary of annual overseas trade in food, feed and drink.