The climate of uncertainty about Brexit and the hypothesis of a no deal UK exit from the European Union on October 31st favour Made in Italy products. This is what emerges from an analysis carried out by Coldiretti on ISTAT data related to foreign trade for the period January-July 2019.
Italian exports to the United Kingdom in the first seven months of 2019 grew by 8.9%. This record growth was favoured by the fear of a no-deal Brexit: in this hypothesis, in fact, the United Kingdom would become in effect a Third Country vis-à-vis the other EU Member States and, therefore, Italy.
The United Kingdom is the fourth Italian trading partner in the agri-food sector. Wine exports account for a total of almost 827 million euros on the British market, while fruit and vegetable are the second most popular Italian food product in Great Britain, followed by pasta, cheese and olive oil. Grana Padano and Parmigiano Reggiano cheeses are particularly appreciated by the UK consumers with a turnover of around 85 million euros.
Finally, according to Coldiretti's analysis, in case of no deal, a non-secondary problem would be represented by products with a geographical indication such as PGIs and PDOs. In fact, these products account for about 30 percent of the total Made in Italy agri-food exports in Great Britain and without European protection they would risk being subjected to unfair competition from imitation products from non-EU countries.