AHDB: International Trade Remains Slow

The latest HMRC (UK Revenue and Customs authority) trade data shows that exports of fresh potatoes (both ware and seed) were down significantly in July 2020 compared to the start of last season (July 2019). Imports of fresh potatoes (excluding seed) were also down this year. For processed potato products the story was slightly different. An increased volume of processed potato products have moved out of the UK but less imported compared to previous years.

Exports

Export markets have been a little subdued towards the end of the 2019-20 season due to the coronavirus pandemic and this has caused a sluggish start to the new season (2020-21). In July 2020 exports of fresh (ware) potatoes, at 6.85Kt, were down 63% year-on-year and 33% against the 5-year average.

Processed potato products exports are, in contrast to fresh, up 23% year-on-year. July exports of processed products totaled 10.02Kt with the Republic of Ireland being the top destination. Similarly to the five-year average for July exports, around 60% of processed potato products have moved to Ireland and the Netherlands combined.

Imports

Just as exports of fresh ware potatoes, imports in July are also down but to a lesser extent (-32% year-on-year and -6% vs. five-year average). A noticeable difference for fresh imports is the volume imported from the Netherlands. There was an 87% reduction compared to the five-year average.

Processed potato product imports also saw a drop off in July 2020 compared to last year (-17%) and the five-year average (-6%). Also seeing a drop in imports from the Netherlands who normally makes up over 50% of the imports of processed potato products but in July 2020 only accounted for 40%.

A large driver of the drop in processed potato products is from frozen imports. In July 2020, 45.11Kt of frozen potato products were imported into the UK compared to 58.65Kt the previous year. With much of the foodservice industry only just reopening in July and a backlog of 2019 domestic supplies it is not surprising that imports were reduced, says AHDB in a recent report.