The UK now imports more of what it eats than at any time in a quarter century. The food and drink trade deficit has swelled past £21bn, the largest since 2000, according to the Guardian. Industry leaders are calling it a wake-up call. Ministers have so far called it nothing.
The numbers come from the Food and Drink Federation’s latest Trade Snapshot, and the shape of the problem is worse than the headline. Export volumes fell 11.7 per cent in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period last year. At 4 billion kg, that is close to the lowest on record, FoodManufacture.co.uk reports. Imports meanwhile ran near record highs.
Two forces are squeezing both ends at once. On the sell side, British producers have lost price competitiveness. Energy costs, labour rules and a compliance bill written for European markets but priced in dollars have thinned margins on exports from Scottish salmon to Cheshire cheese. On the buy side, consumers trained by supermarket deflation keep reaching for cheaper foreign produce, and a warming climate has shifted what grows well here in the first place.
The national security framing is new, and deliberate. The FDF has spent years talking about trade deals; its members now argue that a country unable to feed itself reliably is exposed in a way that balance sheets hide. Successive farm inspections have found enough domestic capacity to weather a short shock. Nobody claims enough to weather a long one.
For food and drink companies, the deficit has a practical face. Exporters facing an 11.7 per cent volume drop are retrenching. Marketing budgets aimed at China and the US are being trimmed. Some mid-sized brands are quietly re-shoring capacity they spent a decade moving abroad, because the pound still buys less risk management than it used to.
Government reaction is awaited. The budget next month is expected to touch on food security through planning reform for new processing sites, and the FDF wants the forthcoming trade strategy to treat shelves, not just ships. Whether chancellors of either party treat a £21bn grocery gap as policy failure or global weather is the question. The record since 2000 suggests the deficit widens whenever the topic leaves the front page.
What the snapshot makes plain is that the trend has no obvious floor. Imports near record levels, exports near record lows, and a currency that stopped doing exporters any favours three years ago. Grocers will keep the shelves full, mostly from abroad, and the number will keep its own counsel until someone in Whitehall decides it deserves a minister.