Demand for fresh fruits in Scotland: potential implications from Brexit

The need to improve the quality of the diet of Scottish consumers has increased the interest and efforts to understand the determinants of fruit and vegetables, as they may help to prevent a range of diet-related health problems. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the demand for fresh fruit in Scotland, with particular emphasis on the contribution of Mediterranean areas. A further motivation comes from depreciation of the GB Pound with respect to the Euro and the US Dollar following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union (Brexit). This is particularly important in the case of fruit because about 80% of the fruit consumed in the United Kingdom is of foreign origin and therefore depreciation of the currency may increase the price of imported fruit. The demand for fruit was modelled as a two-stage budget to include fruit origin. The results indicate that the demand for fresh fruit is sensitive to changes in prices and the pass-through of GBP depreciation may impact negatively on the Scottish demand for fruit and the country’s nutrition goals.