New Brexit checks could lead to food shortages in UK, importers warn | Food and Beverage Industry

Ministers' decision to impose Brexit import checks on April 30 will lead to shortages of some foods, flowers and herbs, industry leaders have warned.

A week after the government was accused of blindsiding the UK food industry by notifying it on Tuesday that all consignments of items such as camembert, steak, tulips and leeks would be subject to a fee of up to $145, small retailers such as delis and farms will be banned from doing so. Stores are scrambling to make sure they still have products to sell.

But they said some EU exporters had already decided they had had enough of British bureaucracy and had halted or given up on supply operations altogether.

Food wholesalers and trade associations have already told the Observer about suppliers from EU countries looking for other markets instead of the UK. From 2020, importers have had to deal with increasing Brexit bureaucracy, including phytosanitary certificates, plant passports, import permits and export health certificates. Next month, you'll have to fill out another form for animal products, plants and herbs, and pay a common user fee (CUC) of up to $145 per shipment.

Ministers said this was only meant to cover the costs of new facilities, including the 154m inland border control station at Savington, Kent, and not to make a profit. But supplier trade group Cold Chain Federation (CCF) estimates the government will reap a $60 million dividend from Brexit, adding $1 billion to the cost of importing chilled food and plants in the process. Insurer Allianz Trade said last week that overall food import costs would rise by 10% in the first year of the new administration.

In a letter to Environment Secretary Steve Barclay, Phil Pluck, CCF's chief executive, wrote that after UK exporters become subject to new rules in 2021, many small cold chain UK warehouses and distributors have decided to suspend operations as they have deemed it too burdensome to manage. He said he did. .

The new border rules mean the impact on both European partners and British businesses could be similar, Pluck said, calling for a delay in border checks.

Nigel Jenney, chief executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said the government was aware that food imports were a quick process that took place overnight, and that some importers were paying more in fees than they were earning from food deliveries. He said he didn't recognize it. He said ministers were able to cut costs for some importers by allowing them to use privately run border crossings at some of the UK's 41 control points. But government inspectors are not available overnight, when most fresh food is delivered, so importers must use Sevington, he said.

We need a control point serviced by government officials to inspect trading hours in our industry. This should be completed within a few days. Because some major exporting countries are simply saying: By this measure, the UK is too complicated to trade with. I won't do it.

The new controls do not apply to fresh fruit and vegetables, but rules on them – an obligation under the terms of Boris Johnson's Brexit deal – are likely to come into force in October, with suppliers of low-value crops such as blueberries and cucumbers already selling their produce to other areas. I'm sending it somewhere.

British farmers were warned last week that harvests would be exceptionally low this year due to heavy rain and flooding, leaving the country more dependent on imported food.

New import restrictions will also make it more expensive for farmers to import seed potatoes and other crops.

Mike Parr, director of logistics company PML Seafrigo, said: For every specialty deli item, Italians, French and Greeks said it wasn't worth paying these costs. Poland is a large blueberry supplier to the UK and is starting to comment that its blueberries are no longer valuable. You can make the same amount of money by importing blueberries from all over Europe, so it's already starting to happen that it's not worth sending blueberries to the UK. The situation will only get worse.

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Freddie Heathcote, managing director of flower and plant wholesaler Green and Bloom, said you could save money by paying for multiple deliveries or grouping deliveries together. But if a pest is discovered on one plant, you risk losing the entire shipment, worth up to $15,000. “If that happens three times, the perimeter will be blocked,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to go through this,” said Stefano Vallebona, who supplies high-end restaurants through his company Vallebona. They just said they didn't want us to pay extra so they wouldn't supply it. Therefore, products from smaller companies will be less interesting.

The beauty of this country is that trade is incredibly easy and well organized. But this is a huge problem and will kill businesses.

A government spokesperson said: We want to support businesses of all sizes to adapt to new border checks, and the general user fee follows extensive consultation with industry, with limits set specifically to help small and medium-sized businesses.

Our world-class border facilities will provide vital biosecurity testing to protect our food supplies, farmers and the environment from costly disease outbreaks entering the UK across short straits.

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