UK wheat exports – a look at the past 10 years
Since HGCA’s UK wheat export classifications UKP and UKS were launched in Paris, 23.2m tonnes of UK wheat has been exported to 53 countries.
In those ten years, an estimated 34% of the wheat exported was classed as UKP (bread-quality milling wheat) and UKS (biscuit and blending quality milling wheat). Wheat exports in 2011-12 were estimated to have been worth more than £400m to the UK economy.
The two classifications opened up access to higher value, higher quality markets, for UK wheat growers, said Sarah Mann, exports manager at HGCA.
See also: EU could beat USA on wheat exports
This allowed UK wheat to enter countries such as Morocco and Algeria which import mainly milling quality wheat, while the proportion of UK milling quality wheat to Spain and Portugal also increased.
Over the past 10 years, Netherlands, Spain and Portugal were consistently the top three destinations for UK wheat, said Sarah Mann, while Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were also key markets.
There are eight UKP and 21 UKS wheat varieties and a recent review by HGCA found that their specifications were still meeting requirements.