Brexit and food security : long-term implications for public health

In an initial expert elicitation in 2019, we asked the question ‘what will be the “new normal” in terms of food prices after Brexit and what are the implications for health?’ When the deadline for the completion of UK’s exit from the EU was extended to December 2020, we ran a fresh analysis to estimate prices in April 2022, i.e. 15 months after Brexit date to allow for any initial disruption to subside. In this second elicitation, we considered three different trade deal scenarios: A: full WTO terms; B: a moderately disruptive trade agreement (better than WTO); C: a minimally disruptive trade agreement. We elicited prices for 10 categories of foods used for CPI under these scenarios. We calculated the weekly cost of a healthy diet of basic foodstuffs for a family of four and for a single pensioner, and how these would vary under the three scenarios. Later, in July 2020, as a follow-up we asked the same food industry experts to indicate how likely each scenario would be the actual outcome (or close to it) in January 2021.