The strategy, ‘United Kingdom: Exporting Dairy to the World’, identifies a raft of actions and recommendations that will enhance the UK dairy industry’s export performance.
The export strategy’s 17 actions and recommendations include:
- Ensuring a skilled workforce is equipped for the future
- Improving the export certification regime
- Creating a one-stop shop for dairy exporters
- Establishing world-class inspection and audit practices
- Identifying market priorities
- Removing barriers to dairy trade
NFU chief dairy adviser Sian Davies said: “Over the past 12 months, the dairy sector has been under severe financial pressure from unprecedented low prices, so looking to add value through selling more UK produce abroad and to growing markets has never been so important. That’s why the NFU is fully supportive of DairyUK’s strategy to unlock new opportunities for high quality British dairy products. However, the whole supply chain will need to work together to achieve this through all necessary routes; producing for market demand, improved skills and training and more processing capacity.
“UK dairy processors are exporting to over 135 countries worldwide although our main export destination is Ireland. In the last calendar year dairy exports were up 8.8 per cent outperforming all other areas of food and drink. Dairy products actually make up 15 per cent of all food exports with cheese being the 3rd largest food category.
“After Ireland our main export destinations for dairy products are the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Germany. We know that Defra wants to focus on new markets outside the EU and this strategy should help to focus minds on removing trade barriers and opening new opportunities for our excellent products.”