New analysis by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has revealed that leaving the EU without a tariff-free trade deal could mean an estimated increase of 5% to 29% in beef prices.
According to BRC, as over three quarters of the food that the UK imports comes from the EU, failure of reaching an agreement on trade will mean that most of these goods will be subject to new tariffs.
As a result, the average cost of food imported by retailers from the EU would increase by 22%, said BRC, with the impact forecast to be “considerable if UK producers react to higher import prices and push their prices up to align with foreign products”.
BRC has estimated potential price increases for a number of everyday food items, should goods from the EU face World Trade Organization tariffs, including beef that could see an estimated increase of 5% up to 29%.
BRC’s calculations were based on import and sales data gathered from its members and tariff rate data from the International Trade Centre.
Andrew Opie, director of Food Policy at BRC, commented: “Price increases of this scale to everyday food items will add a huge burden to hard pressed consumers whose finances are already under increasing strain from inflationary pressures.
“Even at the lower end of the risk, price rises of 5% to 9% dwarf the increase from inflation that shoppers are currently paying on food goods. And the tariffs are particularly high on meat and dairy products, meaning that products such as beef and cheese would be hardest hit.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
