Food and Plants: Imports

(asked on 11th July 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the (a) value and (b) volume of (i) plant material, (ii) meat or animal material and (iii) other food products imported at each point of entry into the UK; and what records of those imports are make at each point of entry.


Answered by
George Eustice Portrait
George Eustice
This question was answered on 16th July 2018

In 2017 from non-EU countries, the UK imported approximately:

  • £4 billion of ‘plants which are food’, weighing 3.7 million tonnes.
  • £4 billion of ‘meat and animal products’, weighing 1 million tonnes.
  • £6 billion of ‘other food products’, weighing 7.1 million tonnes.

Ports keep records of all consignments of imported food of animal origin and high-risk food not of animal origin (food not of animal origin subject to EU sampling legislation) on the TRACES computer system. Other government bodies such as HMRC also keep some records of food imports.

It should be noted that HMRC only collect details of imports of goods at specific points of entry from non-EU countries – currently the same data is not collected for movements of goods from EU member states at specific points of entry.

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