The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has published its annual report, ‘Size and Performance of the Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Sector, Subsector Statistics’. The report contains comprehensive data on the values of sales, exports, value added and number of employees for each of the ten constituent subsectors of the food and drinks processing sector in 2009 and 2010. These key statistics are supplemented with fifteen performance indicators for each subsector. Provisional estimates of sales and employment are also provided for 2011.
In addition, a time-series of data covering the period 1989 – 2010 (2011 where available) has been published on the DARD website for each of the main variables. These will enable users to consider trends over time in variables of interest to them.
Some of the report’s key findings include:
- The value of sales for the sector increased by 8.8% from £3,441million in 2009 to £3,744million in 2010. Provisional estimates suggest sales increased by a further 6.7% in 2011 to £3,994million.
- The food and drinks processing sector contributed approximately 2.3% of Northern Ireland’s total gross value added in 2010.
- In 2010, the food and drinks processing sector, as defined in the publication, was the largest contributor to the employment (29%) and export sales (21%) of the Northern Ireland manufacturing sector. It also accounted for 25% of manufacturing sales, 21% of manufacturing external sales and 15% of manufacturing value added in 2010.
- The beef and sheepmeat and milk and milk products subsectors continued to be the two largest subsectors, in terms of gross turnover, in 2010 and 2011. These subsectors accounted for 49% and 51% of the sector’s total gross turnover in these years, respectively.
- The Great Britain market continued to be the single largest destination for the sales of the sector in 2009 and 2010. Although sales to Great Britain increased by £76.3million between these years, its share of total sales fell from 42.0% in 2009 to 40.7% of sales in 2010.
- In 2009 and 2010, all ten of the food and drinks subsectors traded profitably.
- The total number of direct employees in the sector increased by 1.3% between 2009 and 2010, from 19,680 to 19,944 direct full-time employee equivalents. Employment remained largely the same in 2011, with 19,945 direct full-time employee equivalents.
Source: Northern Ireland Executive – Report on the Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Sector
