Food chain balance

Product life cycles and resource flow in the food sector

Developing an LCA and implementing SCP within the UK food sector is very complex. Approximately £21.9 billion of food is imported to the UK, compared to £9.8 billion exported, this is a significant issue for the food industry and has strong implications for resource flow and environmental impacts. A simplified table showing the structure and economic resource flows for the UK food sector is presented below. It is based on data from the Defra 2006 FISS.

It is possible to place financial inventories like into the context of a food and drink sector company and the impact implementing SCP will have on business development. Business can develop simple LCA's and LCI's that are extremely useful in formulating new approaches in working with existing products and those being developed.

The following list gives an hierarchy for consumers’ expenditure data for 2004 and it is calculated at current prices. Gross Value Added (GVA) (2004 provisional data from ONS) is calculated at basic prices (market prices – taxes + subsidies). Employee data is for Q3 2005. Trade data is for full year 2004, and is rounded. Dashed lines indicate main trade flows. 

1. Total consumer expenditure on food, drink and catering services £148 Bn
   60 million UK consumers
2. Consumers expenditure on catering services £71 Bn
3. Household expenditure on food and drink £77 Bn
4. Caterers (restaurants, cafes, canteens)
   GVA £21.8 Bn and 1.394 million jobs, 111720 enterprises and 262 948 outlets
5. Grocery retailers
   GVA £20.4 Bn and 1.184 million jobs, 61 098 enterprises and 102 537 stores

Exports ££9.7 Bn of which £0.7 Bn unprocessed, £3.5 Bn lightly processed and £5.5 Bn highly processed

Imports £21.9 Bn of which £4.2 Bn unprocessed, £10.1 Bn lightly processed and £7.7 Bn highly processed

Food and drink wholesalers
GVA £7.5 and 194 000 jobs, 13 748 enterprises

Food and drink manufacturing
Includes primary processing (milling, malting, slaughtering) through to complex foods.
GVA (excluding farm animal feed GVA) £20.9 Bn and 418 000 jobs, 6 691 enterprises (excluding farm animal feed enterprises) and 8 905 manufacturing sites and factories (excluding farm animal feed sites)

Agricultural wholesalers
GVA £ 736 M and 22 000 jobs, 3 136 enterprises

Food and drink supply industry (food processing machinery)
GVA £441 M and 11 000 jobs and 564 enterprises

Distribution is not quantified specifically because it is involved in all parts of the chain

Agricultural supply industry (farm animal feed manufacturing, agricultural machinery, fertilisers and pesticides)
GVA £1.4 Bn and 26 000 jobs, 1 646 enterprises

Farmers and primary producers
GVA £7.6 Bn and 541 000 jobs, 311 000 farm holdings, £ 2.9 Bn CAP subsidies (less levies and taxes), 18.5 million hectares

Fishing and fish farming
GVA £454 M and 11 000 jobs, 3 827 enterprises, 6 700 vessels (fleet size)

UK self sufficiency
All food 63%
Indigenous food 74%