Startling findings in study of EU food competitiveness

How competitive is the EU in food processing and marketing? And within the EU, which member states are most competitive in the various food and drink sectors?

These questions were tackled by a Dutch economic research team in a recent report, which makes interesting reading. The researchers are from the reputable LEI institute at Wageningen University.

When assessing competitiveness, they compared performance (exports and market share, growth in value added and in productivity of labour) over the period 2008 to 2012 with performance in several major food producing regions outside the EU (the USA, Brazil, Canada and Australia).