A guide to Defra trade codes and classifications
Updated 15 February 2024
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1. A guide to Defra trade codes and classifications.
1.1 Origins:
The ‘FFD’ (Food, Feed & Drink) system of code groupings has been in existence for many years. It was created so that rather than relying on detailed knowledge of hundreds of individual commodity codes, press and policy teams within Defra had access to trade data in manageable and meaningful chunks. The native HMRC code descriptions are largely technical in content and generally unhelpful in response to the majority of our communications.
It provides a consistent set of commonly used food, feed and drink sectors, and is used as the benchmark for UK exports in outputs such as AUK, annual trade summaries, PQ’s etc.
In total, there are over 4,500 individual commodity codes included in ‘FFD’, which belong to the following set of 2-digit SITC Divisions:
- 01 - Meat And Meat Preparations
- 02 - Dairy Products And Birds’ Eggs
- 03 - Fish And Fish Preparations
- 04 - Cereals And Cereal Preparations
- 05 - Vegetables And Fruit
- 06 - Sugars, Sugar Preparations And Honey
- 07 - Coffee, Tea, Cocoa, Spices Etc.
- 08 - Feeding Stuff For Animals (Excluding Unmilled Cereals)
- 09 - Miscellaneous Edible Products
- 11 - Beverages
- 22 - Oil Seeds And Oleaginous Fruits
- 41/42/43 – Oils And Fats
‘FFD’ and ‘agri-food’ are largely interchangeable terms, and essentially mean the same thing. Sometimes our briefings refer to ‘food & drink’, although in reality this still relates to ‘food, feed & drink’, it is however, more media friendly.
1.2 Post-Referendum expansion:
The increased focus on trade analysis within Defra and across Whitehall brought with it a requirement to analyse trade data for commodities that were outside the original ‘FFD’ set of codes. The ‘FFD+’ system is a simple extension of ‘FFD’, and includes non-food, feed & drink items such as: live animals, fertilisers, chemicals and farm machinery.
A new classification system called ‘Brigades’ was recently introduced. There are three levels of detail, starting with: ‘Crops, Food Industry, Horticulture, Inedible and Livestock & Livestock Products’ at ‘Brigade 1’ level. The new groups were designed to provide more detailed analysis than the original ‘FFD’ series could provide, and at ‘Brigade 2 & 3’ level, allow much more detailed analysis of trade data while still providing a sensible level of aggregation.
1.3 Future uses:
Codes and descriptions are also available for the following systems:
- 8-digit CN Commodity Code
- 2-digit ‘Division’ and 5-digit ‘SITC’
- HS 2/4/6
Official codes and descriptions are subject to annual updates and additions. Further information is available here: Help with classifying goods - UK Trade Info
There are additional fields for identifying the following aspects:
- Indigeneity – whether a product can be grown in the UK on a commercially viable level.
- Degree of Processing – unprocessed, lightly or highly processed.
The last two fields are owned by Defra, and were allocated by the Food & Trade Statistics team, who are responsible for maintaining the table of codes and descriptions.
1.4 Contacts for further information:
If you require any bespoke code groupings for ad-hoc analysis, please contact:
EU & International Trade
trade-stats@defra.gov.uk