Households gain about £21 yearly; restaurants see little relief

By Amara Osei

The Treasury expects the Budget's tariff cuts to save a typical household about £21 a year on food. The measures remove import tariffs on dozens of items and should make more than 100 products cheaper, the Treasury said.

The Treasury said garlic, gherkins and plant-based milk were among the products affected. Some businesses questioned the scale of the help for hospitality operators, arguing that VAT cuts or moves to make employment cheaper would do more.

What did restaurants make of the tariff change?

Morgan Austin, 26, operations manager at burger chain Burgerism, welcomed the removal of tariffs on gherkins. "Really appreciate the gherkins - that is fantastic for us," Austin said.

Burgerism has six main locations and first opened in Salford in 2018. Austin said the measure did not address the more significant pressures on hospitality businesses, including a need for a VAT reduction.

Minimum-wage and employer National Insurance Contribution increases following the previous Budget had cost Burgerism about £150,000 a year, Austin said. "We're not a massive business," she said. "That is a big hit to us, and that could be a whole new site for us."

"We would love to open more sites, have more jobs going for people, hire new young people, but things like that make it really difficult sometimes," Austin said. She also said the measures did not go far enough to support medium-sized businesses looking to expand.

"Everyone loves a pickle, except for the 25% of people that take them off the burgers," Austin said. "I'm sure, for other businesses though, they would have loved to have seen some other things that aren't pickles, because I think pickles can be quite niche."

Why do some operators expect little benefit?

Hassan Zahid, 29, who runs American-Mexican fusion street food business Fuego 1987 in Manchester, said the tariff changes would have only a "really minor" impact. "It would have helped if they reduced tariffs on raw products such as meat or chicken - the items we use as a bulk amount."

"That would help us to gain some profits rather than reducing it on garlic," Zahid said. Fuego 1987 uses meat and chicken in bulk, making a tariff reduction on those ingredients more useful than one on garlic.

Gavin Williams, co-owner of Mattina coffee shop in Salford, Greater Manchester, said the tariff changes offered Mattina no benefit despite its significant use of plant-based milk. "I think it's a classic Andy Burnham style - we're going to do loads to help you out, but actually, when you look at the fine detail, the impact is nothing," Williams said.

Williams said Mattina's almond milk comes from Southport and its oat milk from Milton Keynes. "Our almond milk comes from Southport, which is a few miles down the road. Our oat milk comes from Milton Keynes," Williams explained.

Williams said Mattina's suppliers were UK-based and therefore exempt from import tariffs. "So, we already produce these goods in the UK. The tariff doesn't include import goods on the raw ingredients. So, what difference is it going to make? Zero," he said.

What would offer greater relief?

Williams said reducing VAT would make a greater difference for independent hospitality businesses. He also argued that moves to lower employment costs would offer more support than the tariff changes, matching the preference expressed by other businesses.

"You can't keep increasing the minimum wage, increasing National Insurance Contributions, increasing pension contributions, increasing business rates, increasing energy, increasing everything, and not give us something back," he complained. "It's getting harder and harder and harder to just maintain opening a business."

The policy's business test now is whether VAT relief and lower employment costs can offset rising bills. Austin said the current cost base makes another Burgerism site and more jobs difficult, while Williams said it is already harder to maintain an independent business.