First the good news: exports of British apples are up, at £15,796,000 in 2006, the most recent year listed in Defra’s statistics of food imports and exports.
UK exports of apples and oranges (£ million per year)
It’s good news for struggling English (and the few Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish) apple producers, and also for the lucky recipients of our excellent Discoveries, Coxes, Worcester Pearmains and Bramleys.
Fruit imports and exports: after the good news, the bad and the mad
Now, the bad news: imports of fresh apples in the same year were almost 20 times greater, at £312,604,000.
This much is unsurprising, but nonetheless depressing, old news. Despite Britain’s rich heritage of apples and ideal climate for the production of apples of deep and complex flavour, our supermarkets are full of imported apples even at the height of the British season.
Next, the mad news: the UK exports more oranges (and mandarins etc) than apples. Defra’s figures contain the staggering revelation that British exports of oranges and mandarins amounted to £25,062,000 in 2006.
More extraordinary exports
Oranges are not an isolated anomaly. The United Kingdom is also exporting significant quantities of bananas (£14.6 million in 2006), chocolate (£306 million), coffee (£148 million), grapes (£21.4 million), lemons and limes (£7.1 million) and tea (£156 million).
The reasons for these exports of non-indigenous foods are more obvious for some of these products than others. We don’t grow much tea in Britain (for those who like their tea really British, the Tregothnan estate sells tea grown in their Cornish tea garden, a snip at £6.99 for 25 tea bags) but “British tea” is famous the world over.
There’s clearly global demand for much of the best (and worst) of food produced in British factories from global ingredients.
Why oranges?
A certain nostalgic or curious taste for PG Tips bagged in Manchester or Cadbury’s chocolate manufactured in Birmingham is one thing, but who’s buying all those oranges? I can’t imagine oranges take on any cachet by passing through Britain.
It is presumably simply a case of the re-export (to more local European markets?) of shipments imported from much further afield. Particularly for more niche products like organic and fair trade oranges, a British importer may well find other markets to export product to virtually untouched.
It’s a sad indication of the perceived value of British apples that this sort of trade exceeds demand for the United Kingdom’s own harvest.
