Notice board

Year to date

A similar picture year to date with exports being fairly flat, up by only 1%.  The EU overall down by -1%.  Exports to China have continued to dwindle but losing only 380t this year (-6%) compared to much deeper losses the preceding year.  Chinese demand is hugely influential in driving world trade, and securing a decent-sized UK slice of the Chinese pie is important and should be on ongoing focus. 

In addition to the markets mentioned above, there have been some big wins in 2023 year to date to markets such as Bangladesh (up 5,278t), Peru (up 1,962t), and more surprisingly, New Zealand up by 824t. 

Focus on cheese and curd

Most of the more emerging markets have focussed their imports of UK product on powders, which tend to be a less profitable commodity overall.  It is the more added value dairy products such as cheese, which have particularly been in need of the export channel to support domestic prices in recent months. 

Cheese overall has been fairly steady, with exports down by -0.9% in the year-to-date versus the same period in 2022.  Exports to the EU27 have dwindled a little, and although we are not at the immediate post-Brexit lows of 2021 cheese exports to the EU lost a further -4.8% on last year.  Key losses were Ireland, France, Belgium (typically our biggest three destinations for British cheese), and Germany, and which some good wins in Italy (up 3,906t),the Netherlands (up 1,670t) and Luxembourg (up 520t) could not make up for. 

Globally, the biggest increases in tonnage have come from South Africa (up 1,114t), China (up 967t after a poor year last year), Libya (up 868t) and Lebanon (up 697t). 

These latest figures indicate that in order to meet the stated goal of increasing British dairy exports, further investment and focus in this area is needed and much welcomed.