Spain is the guest country this year at Summer Fancy Food, the most important food fair in North America, which is held in New York and in which 2,400 exhibitors from 60 countries and regions participate. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, has highlighted the growth potential of the Spanish agri-food sector in the US market, the second most important after the United Kingdom outside the European Union, thanks to an offer in which They combine quality, quantity and variety. Spain combines “tradition and avant-garde” to offer “safe, healthy, varied and high-quality food”, something increasingly valued by the American consumer.
Planas’ presence in New York coincides with the approval this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers of a 0% VAT – currently it was 5%, already reduced – on olive oil, an “extraordinary and temporary” measure by the accused high prices, which have tripled since 2021 due to the impact of the drought on crops. In the last pass, 866,000 tons were counted and in the previous one, 688,000, when the average is usually 1.3 to 1.4 million tons.
Olive oil is precisely the most consumed Spanish agri-food product in the US, ahead of wine. A single piece of information demonstrates an interest that is growing: last year, this was the second market in volume of olive oil consumption, after Italy. Demand in recent years is close to one million tons. The export of this product amounted to “640 million euros, followed by wine, with 313 million,” explained Planas. They are closely followed by products such as cheese, “which has the largest international market in the United States.”
But Spain, which occupies the second largest pavilion at the fair, in its 68th edition, not only sells oil of excellent quality. Nearly 80 exhibitors, from traditional canning companies, nougat brands, artisanal and avant-garde coffees, gluten-free pastries or traditional Cola-Cao bottles, have a place of honor in this fair of delicacies that occupies an area equivalent to six football fields, in the huge Manhattan convention center. “It is a magnificent showcase for the Spanish agri-food sector,” stressed the Minister of Agriculture, who during his stay will meet with companies and distributors in the sector, with representatives of the wine sector and will visit Europastry, in New Jersey, of one of the Spanish companies. leaders in frozen dough and pastries. “Last year the sector [de la agroalimentación] exported 2,975 million euros to the United States; Apart from the United Kingdom, the US was our first market outside the EU,” explained the Food Minister.
Only in the first four months of this year, Planas recalled, the agri-food sector has surpassed the rest of the manufacturing sectors in Spain in exports. The figures confirm “the strength and resistance” of the sector, despite setbacks such as the pandemic and, later, the war in Ukraine: Spain is the fourth European food power and the tenth in the world in production. Food exports have accumulated 12 continuous years of surplus and represent almost 20% of the total, with a value of 70.4 billion euros in 2023. As a food exporting country, it is the fourth in the EU and the seventh in the world.
Trump’s threat of tariffs
For Planas, the success story of the Spanish agri-food sector in the world, “a very diversified sector”, is due to the combination of raw materials of exceptional quality, the competitiveness of the sector and the solidity of its business structure, the commitment to innovation and new technologies, as well as environmental sustainability, and the good work of millions of people who turn tradition into the future every day. “The export of Spanish food has a broader dimension, it is also the visibility of our gastronomy, of our restaurants. We project not only food, but a way of life, the Mediterranean diet, which means more than just eating, because it is a way of seeing things, the world.”
Asked about the possibility that a victory by Donald Trump in November would imply an increase in tariffs, as the Republican candidate has promised, Planas pointed out that any trade war, and especially one that involves the food sector, does not benefit anyone. . “Europe, not just Spain, has to be prepared for any eventuality,” he indicated. “The invasion of Ukraine by Russia greatly altered international markets, for example cereals, oilseeds and fertilizers. There is a situation of instability that is not favorable. Therefore, we are committed to international trade based on rules and where there are no trade wars against each other. In trade wars no one wins, and this happens especially in wars that involve the agri-food sector because it affects the purchasing capacity of citizens. That’s not good. “You don’t play with agri-food products”
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