IN Brief:
- UK food and drink exports reached £25.6bn in 2025, while imports rose to a record £66.9bn.
- Export volumes increased 6% to 8.9bn kg, but remained 27% below 2019 levels, with EU export volumes still down 31% on 2019.
- Growth in CPTPP and other non-EU markets continued, while businesses prepared for a planned mid-2027 UK-EU SPS agreement.
The Food and Drink Federation said UK food and drink exports reached £25.6bn in 2025, the highest value on record, while imports rose to £66.9bn. The increase in export value extended the sector’s recovery in headline sales, but the volume picture remained weaker, particularly in trade with the EU.
In tonnage terms, food and drink exports rose 6% year on year to 8.9bn kg. That still left total export volumes 27% below 2019 levels. The shortfall was more pronounced in EU trade, where export volumes in 2025 were still 31% lower than they were before the UK left the bloc, underlining how difficult it has been for manufacturers to rebuild volumes with their largest nearby market.
The gap is especially visible in products that are unlikely to see major benefits from the incoming sanitary and phytosanitary reset. Non-SPS categories such as chocolate, biscuits, and breakfast cereals have recorded some of the steepest export declines over the five years since Brexit compared with the five years before it, showing that customs processes, paperwork, and border friction continue to weigh on packaged food categories as well as chilled and animal-origin lines.
The next major regulatory change is the new UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, which the government says is intended to take effect in mid-2027. That will be a significant operational change for food and drink manufacturers, importers, and exporters, particularly where supply chains or product flows have been redesigned around current border arrangements. Businesses preparing for that timetable can consult the government’s SPS guidance as the detail is developed.
Outside Europe, the trade picture was stronger. Export growth was recorded in Indonesia, Colombia, and India, while food exports to CPTPP member countries rose 7.8% in volume terms in 2025 following the UK’s accession to the bloc in December 2024. At the same time, non-EU imports continued to grow faster than imports from the EU, with their share of total imports rising to 30.9%, driven in part by stronger flows from countries including Brazil and Canada.
Trade with the US became more volatile in the second half of the year. After an 18.1% rise in the first half of 2025, UK food and drink exports to the US fell 8.9% in the second half compared with the same period in 2024 as the new tariff regime fed through global supply chains. The wider disruption also reshaped trade routes elsewhere, with Chinese food and drink exports redirected into alternative markets after a sharper fall in shipments to the US.
Karen Betts, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, said: “With export volumes still far from pre-Brexit levels, the government needs to step up and support exporters to enter and become established in global markets.”
FDF is calling for clearer customs support, stronger export promotion, and practical help for businesses adjusting to the SPS agreement. It also wants a £2.6m investment to expand SME export support across the UK, based on schemes already operating in Scotland and Wales, as part of a wider ambition to grow UK food and drink exports by £10bn over the next decade.
