With more than 206 billion euros in agri-food imports, the United States – where the 2023 edition of Summer Fancy Food Show has just concluded – is the world’s second-largest market for the purchase of agricultural and food products (the first one is China, which is more unbalanced in terms of commodity imports).
According to data from the Italian research company Nomisma, in the last five years (2017 to 2022) the United States market has grown the most in terms of the value of food and beverage imports: +62 percent, compared to +41 percent for the EU, +33 percent for the UK, or +28 percent for Japan.
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Among the top suppliers to the U.S. are neighboring countries favored by the Nafta free trade agreement. Mexico and Canada account for 40 percent of F&B exports to the U.S. (bakery products, beer, and spirits are the most imported products). Italy ranks fourth (after France) among suppliers, with an import value of about seven billion euros dominated by the main made-in-Italy products: wine (28 percent of total exports yoy), pasta (9 percent), olive oil (8 percent), and cheese (6 percent). Italy has also seen the value of its exports to the U.S. grow faster than the overall average in the last five years (+65%), unlike China, which – between diplomatic crises and trade wars – has lost -5% in a market context of continuous growth.
This growth will continue until 2023. In the first four months of 2023, agri-food imports from Italy increased by almost +7% in value compared to the same period last year.