Northern Ireland Food and Drink sales grow to £5.2 billion

Northern Ireland’s food and drink industry is estimated to have increased by seven per cent in 2018 to £5,162 million, according to a new report from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs.

The latest annual report on the industry shows growth in all key markets including Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and other EU countries. Great Britain remained the sector’s largest single market accounting for 51 per cent of sales in 2018 compared to 50 per cent in 2017. 

Between 2017 and 2018 the sector’s sales increased within Northern Ireland (+£6.9m), to Great Britain (+£240.1m), to Ireland (+£81.9m) and to other EU countries (+£27.3m). Sales to the rest of the world dipped slightly (-£0.2m).

The latest data is from the department’s ‘Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Report’ previously known as ‘Size and Performance of the Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Sector, Subsector Statistics’.

It also shows that the hugely important sector contributed 35 per cent to Northern Ireland’s total manufacturing sales in 2018, an increase from 32 per cent in 2017. The sector accounted for 38 per cent of manufacturing external sales in 2018 and 23 per cent of export sales.

Value added by the sector increased by one per cent to £921 million between 2017 and 2018. 

The estimated number of direct full-time employee equivalents (FTE) in the sector remained broadly the same at 23,625 in 2018 compared to 23,632 in 2017.

Overall, the sectors contribution to total Northern Ireland GVA has remained unchanged between 2017 and 2018 at two per cent. The contribution to manufacturing gross value, however, added increase from 19 per cent to 20 percent.

The sector’s contribution to total manufacturing employment fell from 28 per cent to 27 per cent between 2017 and 2018.

The report, furthermore, contains comprehensive data on the values of sales, value added, number of employees and destination of sales for each of the ten constituent subsectors of the food and drinks processing sector for 2017 and 2018. These key statistics are supplemented with fifteen performance indicators for each subsector.

Pic: Northern Ireland food being promoted in a supermarket in Dubai