Agri-food exports set new highs in April, increasing by 1.9% thanks to “encouraging” wine prices

New high for food exports following the all-time high of 60.7 billion euros in 2022. A record achieved thanks to the Mediterranean Diet’s symbolic products such as wine, pasta, and fresh fruits and vegetables, which have climbed to the top of the list of the best-selling Italian specialities in the world. According to the Coldiretti analysis, food increased by 1.9% in April compared to the same month in 2022, while the overall decline reached -5.4%.
Overall, food exports increased by 10.5% in the first quarter of 2023, much more than the average, according to Coldiretti. Food exports to France (+19%) have increased the most among the major countries, followed by Germany (+12%), the United Kingdom (+12%), and the United States (+3%). Overall, Germany remains the largest food outlet market in the first four months, with a value of 2.6 billion, ahead of the United States, which had 2.1 billion, and surpassing France, which had 2 billion. Positive results were also reported in the United Kingdom (1.3 billion), demonstrating that Italian exports outperformed Brexit.
Wine has been confirmed as the “champion” of Italian exports (here is the data, analyzed by WineNews, on exports in the first quarter, which reached 1.77 billion euros, with a growth of +3.8%, ahead of pasta and other cereal derivatives, fresh fruit and vegetables, processed fruit and vegetables, extra virgin olive oil, and cured meats). According to Coldiretti, this success is under attack “by health terrorism on wine and cured meats, with alarming labels that reject Italian excellence, new packaging rules and green extremism with farms equated to large polluting industries, up to the ban on trawling until the possible arrival of artificial products”.
“The contribution of Made in Italy agri-food production to exports and to the country’s growth - said the president of Coldiretti, Ettore Prandini - could be much higher and for this reason, we need to seize the opportunity of the Pnrr to modernize national logistics and act on structural delays of Italy by unlocking all the infrastructures to improve connections between the south and north of the country, but also with the rest of the world by sea and high-speed rail, with a network of hubs made up of airports, trains and cargo”.