Is Welsh food & drink due a World Cup boost? Wales category report 2022

After countless near misses, the Welsh football team will finally stride out at the World Cup later this month in Qatar. The placement of Wales on a global stage marks the end of 64 years of hurt.

Having qualified for the first time since 1958, it’s a “fantastic chance” to “show the world Wales is an open, welcoming and ambitious country”, according to economy minister Vaughan Gething, who launched a £1.5m fund to promote Wales abroad in August.

And Welsh food and drink will form a crucial part of that drive. Already, the sector is thriving. In November 2021, the Welsh government announced an action plan to grow annual sales to £8.5bn by 2025, having smashed its previous target.

While the Labour administration in Cardiff had hoped to hit annual food and drink sales of £7bn by 2020, the sector surpassed that mark in 2019, having seen a 30% increase in sales since 2014. Crucial to that success was a 34.8% rise in annual exports from £408m to £550m over the same period.

So what measures is the Welsh government planning to implement to grow the food and drink sector? How is it looking to make the most of the World Cup? And what are brands doing to expand their reach across the UK?

Increasing global recognition of Wales and boosting exports have long been seen as key to developing and modernising Welsh food and drink.

The government has backed several initiatives to meet those goals over the past decade, including trade missions, the biannual Blas Cymru/Taste Wales food exhibition, and a network of business clusters across the country. The latter helps connect suppliers with government and academia to collaborate on issues such as sustainability, business resilience and marketing.

The strategy will be ramped up under the Welsh government’s growth plan, A Vision for the Food & Drink Industry from 2021, which aims to promote climate-friendly growth.

Key actions include attracting more inward investment, improving technical support to businesses and boosting knowledge sharing and training.

One initiative, Food Innovation Wales’s Project Helix, offers help and funding for producers across NPD, certification, efficiency and industry intelligence.

The plan also aims to improve support in areas such as automation, and to turn a perceived weakness – Wales’ abundance of small-scale producers – into a strength.

“There is a growing global awareness and increasing demand for the Welsh brand”

To do this, the government hopes to leverage and build on the capacity of Wales’ aggregators and wholesalers, making them “a focal point for producers, helping them build local supply networks and then reach into a wider market”. This will “attract investment in building food-grade premises that capitalise on the latest low-carbon tech”.

The aim is to capitalise on “a growing awareness around the world of the Welsh brand”. The Welsh government has said it is keen “to evolve our programme of virtual and physical trade missions, financial support for export-related research, and trade show attendance and tailored advice”.

If the latest Welsh government data is anything to go by, that mindset is already reaping rewards. Food and drink exports outside the UK grew by 16% last year to a record £640m.

Plus, the first shipments of Welsh lamb in a generation hit US shores just a few weeks ago. Hybu Cig Cymru/Meat Promotion Wales says the nation is “ready to build” on previous export successes to crack the market (see left).

Wales’ presence at the winter World Cup in Qatar will only add to that export opportunity, adds Lauren Smith, marketing manager for food and drink consultancy Levercliff and a project manager for the Welsh government’s drinks and sustainability clusters.

Home support

While international sport will undoubtedly help boost Wales’ profile abroad, “the World Cup also acts as a platform for promotion at home”, Smith says.

Among the consumer-facing initiatives targeting Welsh supporters are the government’s #CaruCymruCaruBlas/#LoveWales

LoveTaste campaign and the drinks cluster’s Drink Welsh campaign. The latter “encourages consumers at home to ‘support Wales on and off the pitch’ by drinking Welsh throughout the tournament”, says Smith.

According to government data, listings of Welsh products are already growing to meet this demand. The number of Welsh products in major multiple distribution in Wales has increased by more than 23% year on year.

The Welsh government hopes to encourage further progress by giving retailers market data, category analysis and access to the Welsh government’s ‘Value of Welshness’ research, which shows more than 80% of Welsh shoppers prefer to buy Welsh products.

Retailers are acting accordingly. In October Asda held its first supplier conference with the trade development programme.

“Selling local products is a business imperative. Our customers want quality Welsh products”

The event gave suppliers a glimpse into how Asda “is moving forward, which allows us to focus on our future planning whilst working towards the same direction”, says Jason Ellis, director of Ellis Eggs.

The company was among more than 40 Welsh food and drink producers who could meet the supermarket’s buyers and “get retail ready”, says Asda’s local buyer for Wales, Gruffudd Roberts.

“Selling local products is a business imperative because our customers tell us they want to see a range of great-quality Welsh products in their local stores,” he adds.

That can already be seen in Asda’s stores, which boast more than 40 separate Welsh suppliers. The retailer is looking to grow that to more than 100 over the next 18 months.

Likewise, more than 200 individual Welsh products are available across all categories – a figure Asda hopes to grow by 37 before the end of the year.

Partly in aid of that, the retailer has just revamped its PoS and shelf-edge labelling in Welsh stores to highlight locally sourced products. And Roberts is looking into more targeted sourcing that could see more products specific to Welsh regions.

British market

The Welsh government is also looking to near neighbours as a source of growth under its plan. It argues that Welsh produce “deserves to take a prominent place on the shelves of every retailer in the UK”.

Its Value of Welshness research shows a third of English shoppers would be more likely to buy a product with Welsh cues on pack. It’s an attitude that has spurred on the Snowdonia Cheese Company, says commercial director Richard Newton-Jones.

“When we started, we didn’t just focus on selling in Wales – we wanted a brand that was for all of the UK,” he says. The business achieved national cut-through by attending farmers markets and other events.

In addition to an abundant presence in export markets, Snowdonia’s cheeses are available across the UK, from independent retailers to Waitrose and Ocado.

Ieuan Edwards, owner of north Wales-based butcher business Edwards of Conwy, is taking a similar approach. He recently rebranded his entire retail range as Edwards the Welsh Butcher, to give it a “fresh and modern look” that played on its Welsh heritage.

“Wales has been behind the curve in developing headline brands compared to Ireland”

Drawing in part from Welsh government funding, the brand invested £3m in manufacturing capabilities last year.

This means as well as being available across the major supermarkets in Wales, Edwards has some listings in the north west of England and via Ocado across the UK. It even made it as far as south east England in a trial with The Co-op this summer. “We are definitely looking to do more on a national basis,” Edwards says.

Gwynedd-based cheesemaker South Caernarfon Creameries has similarly invested in infrastructure – again partially funded by the Welsh government through a £5m grant – to get to the next level, says its MD Alan Wyn Jones.

A £14.4m investment in production will help grow capacity from the current 15,000 tonnes to 23,000 tonnes by 2025. Its Dragon cheese brand is the number one in Wales, Wyn Jones claims.

The company also supplies own label cheese to the likes of Aldi and Lidl across the UK. As such, the supplier’s retail business now accounts for 70% of turnover – up from 10% six years ago.

Wyn Jones says there is still room to grow. “Wales has been behind the curve when it comes to developing headline brands, compared to the likes of Ireland. But we and other suppliers have proven it is possible to develop them and to step outside of Wales.”

As such, the company is hoping to grow Dragon’s export sales to be worth 15% of the company’s entire turnover by the middle of the decade, Jones says.

“We have demonstrated to our customer base there is a market for Welsh produce outside of Wales. There are lots of opportunities for a company like us to grow further.”

Given the track record, it looks like Welsh food and drink will be a safe bet in the coming months – even if a triumph at the World Cup is a longer shot.