The cart is empty 
Report on the Northern Ireland Food and Drinks Processing Sector
- 06 August 2013
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 2010 and 2011. These key statistics are supplemented with fifteen performance indicators for each subsector. Provisional estimates of sales and employment are also provided for 2012.
In addition, a time-series of data covering the period 1989 – 2011 (2012 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 6.4% from £3,746million in 2010 to £3,985million in 2011. Provisional estimates suggest sales increased by a further 4.2% in 2012 to £4,154million.
- The food and drinks processing sector contributed approximately 3.6% of Northern Ireland’s total gross value added in 2011.
- In 2011, the food and drinks processing sector, as defined in the publication, increased its contribution to the sales (26%), external sales (23%), export sales (24%) and value added (16%) of the Northern Ireland manufacturing sector. It also accounted for 26% of total manufacturing employment in 2011.
- 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. Together, they accounted for 49.3% and 50.1% of the sector’s total gross turnover in these years, respectively.
- Great Britain continued to be the largest market for sales in the sector with 40.8% and 40.0% of total sales in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The Republic of Ireland was the most important destination for export sales, despite its share of total sales falling from 17.5% in 2010 to 16.3% of sales in 2011.
- All food and drinks processing subsectors traded profitably in 2010 and 2011.
- The total number of direct employees in the sector decreased by 1.7% between 2010 and 2011, from 19,977 to 19,628 direct full-time employee equivalents. Employment recovered marginally by 0.8% in 2012, with 19,778 direct full-time employee equivalents.
