Consumers are set to see an increase in the variety of foods available from the Continent – ranging from cheeses and salamis to oysters and eggs – due to Britain’s Brexit “reset” with the EU.
But they are unlikely to benefit from vastly cheaper grocery bills, industry experts and retailers have said.
A proposal to scrap costly and cumbersome safety checks imposed as a result of leaving the EU on the “vast majority” of goods moving across the English Channel was presented by the Government as one of the major wins of the deal struck with Brussels on Monday, offering the prospect of cheaper food.
The plan for shared rules on food and plant safety – part of a so-called Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement or veterinary deal – would see dozens of categories of “medium risk” goods currently subject to extensive paperwork, including veterinary approval, allowed to pass between Britain and the EU without such certifications and checks.
Industry sources told The i Paper that the move paves the way for thousands of small and medium-sized producers within the UK and on the Continent, who had simply given up trading across the Channel due to the cost and complexity of the bureaucracy, to now resume exports.
And several industry sources said a significant reduction in red tape would have major benefits after numerous suppliers have seen consignments turned back at the border or gone to waste because of delays or faulty paperwork.
The i Paper is aware of one recent incident where a UK poultry producer had to destroy a consignment of four lorryloads of meat worth £100,000 because a single digit had been mistyped on a document.
According to figures produced by the Food and Drink Federation, the volume of foodstuffs being exported from the UK to the Continent has fallen by 34 per cent since 2019.
Such has been the intricacy of following the post-Brexit trade rules, which the UK fully implemented last April under a system known as the Border Target Operating Model (BTOM), that some haulage companies have started employing their own vets to provide the necessary certification for animal products, with one firm paying £12,000 a month for the service to keep meat supplies moving.
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Consequently, some artisanal products from Italian salamis and Spanish game pates to Cotswold cheeses and smallholder Welsh lamb are set to return to sale in Britain and the EU respectively.
The owner of one UK-based specialist food import and export agency said: “If the new SPS deal is as described, then a lot of the friction that was introduced by Brexit will go. It’s hard to overstate how much of a ball ache the existing regime has proved to be – we lost dozens of companies who said it was not worth the bother of selling to the UK and vice versa. I would be hopeful of seeing a lot more variety and quantities of goods coming from Europe and going back the other way.”
Keir Starmer said on Monday that the new import regime would make food cheaper and, together with a separate deal over emissions trading, would be worth £9bn to the British economy.
But some experts and business owners poured cold water on the notion of falling food bills, saying that savings recouped from the removal of expenses such as veterinary certifications – currently estimated to cost UK companies £400m a year – would be offset by enduring levies such as customs formalities as well as additional expenses caused by increases to National Insurance and the minimum wage.
A deal struck between the Government and Brussels is set to slash red tape governing food imports and exports but it could take another 12 months to be finalised (Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty)Food prices unlikely to change
Phil Pluck, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents the operators of some 450 temperature-controlled warehouses and 40,000 lorries ferrying food to and from the Continent, said: “This deal certainly means we are looking at the potential for more food variety and choice. But whether that translates into lower costs is a different matter.
“I would be surprised if UK consumers saw an increase in food costs but I would also be surprised if they saw those costs fall significantly. There are so many unforeseen and additional costs that have arrived since Brexit that I don’t believe we will see anything other than very small savings.”
Retailers who rely heavily on imports from Europe said they were being hit with high administrative costs, including compulsory fees for an inspection regime at purpose-built Border Control Posts (BCPs) such as a multi-million pound facility at Sevington in Kent. Industry sources said only a fraction of consignments liable to inspection were being checked at BCPs.
Kate Shirley Quirk, owner of Delicioso, an Oxfordshire delicatessen company specialising in Spanish products, said she had had to stop stocking some products including a range of wild-caught game pates because the supplier had been unable to obtain a veterinary certificate.
But even when paperwork can be obtained, further problems arise with sending smaller food consignments across the Channel. While supermarkets can import entire lorryloads of produce for a relatively modest single fee, smaller producers must pay a similar fee despite trading in much lower volumes.
Ms Shirley Quirk described how small orders of a short-dated meat product sold by Delicioso attract a £70 charge for animal health checks and then a further £80 fee for inspections that are rarely enforced.
square TRADE New Brexit deal to lower supermarket prices... but not for years
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She said: “We would welcome a veterinary agreement, but unless some of these other costs disappear as well the hoped-for lower prices in a shopping basket are unfortunately likely to be minimal at least.”
Multiple experts pointed to a lack of detail in the agreement unveiled on Monday by Starmer and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen – including just which categories of goods are set to be exempt from food checks and which requirements, such as customs formalities, will remain – as a reason for caution. It is understood that Britain and the EU hope to have their new SPS deal in place within 12 months.
Marco Forgione, director general of the Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade, said: “The headlines of this agreement are very positive – friction on our border has produced a stark decline in trade since Brexit. But we still have to wait for the detail of how this is going to work because it is crucial to understand how the system can be changed and adapted to reduce this friction. That award-winning English sparkling wine remains on ice for now.”
Poland sees opportunity to increase meat imports
The imposition of post-Brexit food controls has already begun to reshape some aspects of trade. While there has been a decline in UK exports to the EU, some European countries have spotted an opportunity to increase imports into Britain.
Poland, already Europe’s largest poultry producer and the fourth largest source of pork, now imports more than £1bn of meat to the UK – a figure which has grown by nearly 10 per cent since 2023.
Agnieszka Kisielewska, a Warsaw-based international trade and tax lawyer, said: “Even despite friction at the border, this trade has increased and could increase further if an SPS agreement is reached. Alignment between the UK and EU on SPS standards could alleviate some of the friction that BTOM introduced.”
Hauliers said they hoped a new deal would allow inspection authorities to prioritise dealing with large quantities of illegal meat entering the UK with a high-risk of carrying diseases such as swine fever. In February it was revealed that more than 100 tonnes of uncertified meat, much of it from eastern Europe, had been seized at the Port of Dover in the last 12 months.
Mr Pluck said: “If the resource being put into Brexit checks can be refocused on stopping these large quantities of dodgy meant entering the UK then that is the sort of change that would be very useful. The implementation of was a masterclass in how to do such things very badly.
“What we don’t want to do now is create another set of problems by rushing to get rid of the existing ones. Let’s take a period of time to make sure we get it right this time.”
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