Welcome to Unite's food, drink and agricultural sector.
The food and drink sector is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK and employs around 400,000 people, or approximately 17% of the UK's manufacturing workforce. Unite has members working for companies such as Unilever, Kraft / Cadbury, Nestlé, Princes, Greencore, Bakkavor, Heinz and Coors Brewing.
The sector also includes many of the 800,000 workers in retail food, with a substantial presence in supermarkets such as Sainsbury's where our 17,000 members make it one of the largest single companies represented across the whole of Unite.
A significant proportion of the 175,000 people employed in the transportation of food and drink are also represented by Unite, for example those involved in the beer delivery sector (KNDL, Carlsberg and Trade Team) and the distribution of branded products such as Coca-Cola and Britvic.
Unite also represents a large proportion of the 6,000 workers employed in the UK's tobacco industry in JTI, Imperial Tobacco and BAT.