United Kingdom
Report Team Narrative
Adapted from the report by Steve Taylor on behalf of the United Kingdom Berry Industry
Fresh blueberry sales in the UK continue to increase over the full year, but with some notable distortions year-on-year such as Peru disrupting the market with large increases in exports from the start of September until the end of November. Overall prices are steady with the exception of the September/October period.
UK growers generally coped well with Covid-related problems in 2020 but in 2021 the problems revolved around labour shortages, which were almost totally due to Brexit rather than covid. Some crops towards the end of the UK season, in September especially, were left on the plant unpicked. There were also logistics issues with the country being over 30,000 HGV (heavy goods vehicle) drivers short as many are traditionally from Eastern Europe and new people are now no longer able to come to the UK to work.
There were also almost no HGV tests done for the peak 18 months of the covid pandemic as it affected the UK. The UK Government has failed miserably in predicting these Brexit-related shortages, which are across a number of sectors. Unemployment in the UK is generally low (under 4% as of April ‘22) even in the wake of covid, and the demographic of Eastern Europeans who have left the country is not matched by the demographic and skillset of the English people who are looking for work. The social benefits system also means that for many they are better off staying at home and not working.
The industry has asked the Government for help in allowing greater numbers of migrant workers to be allowed to assist with the harvest operations on a temporary visa basis, but the government has refused with some strong words, saying that growers should invest in robots and pay English workers more, even though there are not enough English people to do the work, even if they wanted this type of work.
A cross-party group of 12 MPs challenged this policy as not being good for the country, in a very critical published March 2022 after a detailed investigation of the UK soft fruit industry post Brexit.
Faced with a shortage of labour for the second year running, growers have therefore been forced into taking decisions to change operations to require less pickers. Growers have limited options to become more efficient, and we already see reduced plant orders, especially on fruits such as raspberries, where we will see a 10-15% reduction in the harvest being picked in 2022. Growers are also grubbing crops when they might normally leave them in for one more year, focusing instead on crops that are picker-efficient and make the most money. In the UK this means most growers have not cut back on strawberries but have either cut back, not replanted or grubbed early, fruits such as raspberries or blackberries. Blueberries are one the least profitable but growers are reluctant to take them out as they are typically a 10-year crop, with a large amount grown in pots as well as many in tunnels. This means mechanical harvest options are not an option for most, but equally growers do not want to remove a crop that is only a few years’ old. The end result is the volume and hectares of blueberries are fairly static, and over the next few years we might expect a slight decline in hectarage, and static production at best as new fields come into production.
Blueberries do have the advantage over raspberries and blackberries in that they have a longer window to carry out each pick, but conversely the cost per kg is significantly higher as the kg/hour picked is significantly less than for raspberries or strawberries. If there is another year with labour shortfalls, then blueberries are under threat.
Around 50% of UK production is under tunnelled production, much to maximise the value of pot-grown fruit. A large percentage of the UK production is in pots, and so there is a mixture of soil and pot grown, and open or tunnelled production. With labour becoming the dominant issue, then the picking efficiency is becoming the most important factor in the method chosen for new plantings.
UK growers aim mostly for early or late production as they cannot compete with Polish production from the second week July until the end of August, which is the natural northern highbush blueberry open production timing in England. Varieties such as Duke are still widely grown, with none of the newer proprietary varieties showing improvement on Duke in that time slot, and Duke being a ‘free’ variety has also limited the uptake of some newer genetics. Late season growers have varieties such as Liberty, but Peru is severely impacting what were traditionally high prices during the late market, being present in volume now from 1st September in the UK (but could be earlier if there is a demand). UK growers therefore try to have minimum production from the third week July to the end of August.
The UK consumer also does not want to pay much of a premium for UK-produced blueberries, and so there are very limited opportunities for premiums.
The UK was one of the first countries to return to the new ‘normal’ in so far as covid is concerned, and this is not impacting business for the 2022 calendar year. The new challenge is the unprecedented increase in input costs, with transport up 20% year-on-year and steel and plastic prices up 30-60%, which disproportionately affects UK production as a greater proportion is grown under tunnels. Although energy cost spikes are being seen globally, the self-inflicted UK labour cost rise of 7-10% in 2022 compared to 2021, on top of similar rises in 2020 and 2021, make the situation of the UK grower more problematic than some. UK supermarkets are saying the right words of sympathy, but they are also saying to consumers that they will not raise prices as they understand that the consumer is also suffering with the high inflation (7% year-on-year and rising, as of April 2022). First indications are that the UK supermarkets will import more fruit to keep prices down rather than pay UK growers more money.
The conflict in Ukraine has created a lot of uncertainty in Europe, specifically in the labour market, quite aside from the effect on fuel prices as a result of Europe actively seeking to reduce its dependence on Russia. The UK is also accepting Ukrainian refugees and allows them to work, although due to the incompetence of the UK Home Office administration, most are likely to be wanting to return to Ukraine before their paperwork to come to the UK is processed. Given the fluidity of Ukrainians’ right to work in all of Europe, including the UK, at the time of writing there is therefore a large degree of uncertainty over how the war will affect labour availability for the main summer picking season within Europe, and there likely will be a knock-on effect in the UK.
IQF is almost zero in the UK due to growers not being set up for machine picking and being aimed at supermarket sales.
Total UK sales in 2021 were around 52,000 tonnes, up 5-6%, and 2021 per capita consumption was around 780g per person per annum.
Around half the UK sales increases are coming from increased market penetration, which reduces the level of price deflation that would otherwise be seen, but there are large seasonal variations in trends, particularly with the Peru effect as mentioned earlier.