The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) in Northern Ireland has published its annual ‘Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Report’ which shows a total estimated gross turnover of £5.4 billion.
This represents an increase of 0.9% for the sector in 2020 and provisional estimates for 2021 project a 6.4% increase to £5.8 billion.
The report was previously known as ‘Size and Performance of the Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Sector, Subsector Statistics’.
It contains comprehensive data on the values of sales, value added, number of employees and destination of sales for each of the 10 constituent subsectors of the food and drinks processing sector for 2019 and 2020.
These key statistics are supplemented with 15 performance indicators for each subsector. Provisional estimates of sales and employment are also provided for 2021.
Gross turnover (£ m) 2019 Gross turnover (£ m) 2020 Difference (£ m) % change 2019/2020 Animal byproducts 45.1 48.4 3.3 7.3 Bakeries 404.7 441.9 37.2 9.2 Beef and sheepmeat 1,395.0 1,469.6 74.6 5.3 Drinks 448.5 421.7 -26.8 -6.0 Eggs 189.8 189.7 -0.1 -0.1 Fish 95.4 89.8 -5.5 -5.8 Fruit and vegetables 398.2 416.1 17.9 4.5 Milk and milk products 1,227.4 1,186.9 -40.5 -3.3 Pigmeat 400.6 453.5 53.0 13.2 Poultry meat 771.0 705.9 -65.0 -8.4 Total sector 5,375.6 5,423.6 47.9 0.9
Only data for firms with a minimum business turnover of £250,000 are included in the report because of the difficulty in accessing detailed accounting information for small businesses.
NI food and drinks sector report
Other key findings in the report are:
- The estimated number of direct full-time employee equivalents (FTEs) in the sector increased by 0.8% to 25,078 FTEs in 2020. Provisional estimates for 2021 project a 0.1% increase to 25,105 FTEs;
- The value added by the sector to the Northern Ireland economy increased by 8.4% to £1.1 billion in 2020;
- Between 2019 and 2020 the sector’s sales increased to Great Britain (GB) (£107.7 million) and to Ireland (+£13.3 million). Sales decreased within Northern Ireland (-£0.3 million), to other EU countries (-£25.3 million) and to the rest of the world (-£47.4 million). Great Britain remains the sector’s largest market accounting for 48.9% of sales in 2020; an increase from 47.3% in 2019;
- The food and drinks sector contributed 39.3% to total manufacturing sales in 2020, an increase from 36.6% in 2019. The sector also accounted for 42.5% of manufacturing external sales in 2020 and 26.8% of export sales;
- The sector’s contribution to total Northern Ireland GVA has increased slightly between 2019 and 2020 from 2.4% to 2.6%. The contribution to manufacturing GVA increased from 21.7% to 22.3% over the same period;
- The sector’s contribution to total manufacturing employment increased from 29.4% to 30.4% between 2019 and 2020.
The largest export market continues to be Ireland, which recorded a 1.5% increase in sales from £862 million in 2019 to £875 million in 2020. Ireland accounted for 16.1% of the total sales in the food and drinks processing sector in 2020, an increase of 0.1%.
The statistics within the report assist businesses with benchmarking, and provide context for the government when preparing food and farming strategies for Northern Ireland.