Greencore CEO Patrick Coveney said he believes it’s “more like than not” that there will be a Brexit trade deal agreed this week that will remove the threat of tariffs between the EU and the UK.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Coveney said tariffs on food and other imports would result in a 5% rise in food prices in the UK due to cost inflation, which is obviously a scenario the entire UK food industry is keen to avoid.

However, Coveney said it now looks likely that some form of trade agreement will be agreed, probably by the end of this week, which he believes will remove the threat of tariffs on goods being traded between the UK and the EU from January 2021.

Coveney said Greencore sources up to £100m (€111m) worth of food ingredients and packaging materials from Ireland every year. Despite the threat of tariffs hanging over some of these imports, the Greencore boss said he believes the company has done a lot of good preparatory work to mitigate any potential tariffs.

UK economy

On the future of the UK economy, Coveney said he believes there will be a considerable “bounce-back” in the UK economy once medical interventions like the COVID-19 vaccine and rapid testing are rolled out in 2021.

“The UK is a big, dynamic and resilient economy and I’m confident we will see a considerable bounce-back. A lot of UK citizens are now sitting on very high levels of savings because they haven’t been able to spend their money on things like travel and eating out. I think this latent build-up of savings could drive consumer activity in the UK,” said Coveney.

The Greencore boss added that he expects to see a strengthening in the value of sterling relative to the euro once a trade deal is agreed between the EU and the UK.