The new £22mn border facility at the port of Harwich on England’s east coast is ready for action, with 13 spotless loading bays where, from the end of next month, selected trucks delivering food and animal products from the EU will be inspected.
But despite all the gleaming new equipment on display, industry bodies on both sides of the Channel are voicing ever-louder concern that the British government has failed to prepare the ground adequately for the introduction of a new post-Brexit border.
Representative groups for the plant and food industries say that key operational information is still missing with less than seven weeks to go before the border goes live on April 30.
Checks on plant and animal products have been delayed five times since the EU-UK trade deal came into force in January 2021, but the British government has said it is now committed to implementing the post-Brexit border in order to improve biosecurity.
The introduction of border bureaucracy, which is being phased in gradually over 2024, will also level the playing field with EU businesses, which means they now undergo similar checks to those that UK exporters to the EU have faced since 2021.
However, James Barnes, chair of the Horticultural Trades Association, which represents the UK plants industry, said in a letter to the prime minister that there was “an extraordinary amount of detail missing” on how inspection posts would handle products like high-risk plants.
Barnes added that basic details remained “unknown”, including the level of pre-launch testing of the operation, the maximum waiting times for drivers and the system for messaging drivers if their loads are selected for inspection.
“Without answers and clarity and without any of these processes being able to be properly tested in April, it is unacceptable and irresponsible to proceed as the government intends,” he wrote in the letter, seen by the Financial Times.
The food and drink industry has also raised concerns, warning that the checks will drive up food prices and increase wastage as a result of border delays reducing the shelf life of perishable products.
Phil Pluck, chief executive of the Cold Chain Federation, which represents the industry, said in a letter to the government last week that businesses were “still waiting for clarity” in a number of important areas.
Among main issues of concern was whether all border inspection posts would be open 24 hours a day and whether the advance notification of consignments could be cut from 24 hours to 4 hours, which Pluck said was vital for just-in-time deliveries.
“We are still waiting to hear from Government about how some key parts of the new process will work, and we have serious concerns about the readiness of the border control posts,” he wrote to Steve Barclay, secretary of state at the Department for Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The horticultural industry has questioned whether the border control post in Harwich — which has seven inspection bays dedicated to plants — is going to be big enough to handle the volumes arriving from the Netherlands.
Over 80 per cent of Britain’s plant and flower imports — a trade worth £750mn in 2022 — pass through Harwich, according to the HTA, which described the facility as “drastically deficient”.
Dutch export industry bodies, which tested the facility late last year, warned in January that the checks were “a disaster waiting to happen”. They said last week that their concerns remained unchanged and they fear “huge traffic jams” as inspections ramp up.
Hendrik Jan Kloosterboer, the secretary of Anthos, the Dutch trade association for nursery stock and flower bulbs, said he visited Harwich in December and had held calls with UK government officials in recent weeks, but had not been reassured.
“We very much doubt if the inspection capacity is enough. We fear damage and mix-up of loads, quality issues and delays and logistic disturbance,” he added.
Both associations have asked the government to take mitigation measures to reduce the impact.
The HTA would like the government to extend current arrangements that allow plants to be checked at the point of arrival in nurseries in the UK. This is due to end in April, but the HTA said the system should continue in parallel in order to allow a smoother transition.
Pluck said Cold Chain Federation members want physical inspections on plant and animal products to be delayed to October to give European operators more time to prepare.
The launch of physical border inspections follows the introduction in January of new paperwork for EU exporters sending plant and animal products to the UK, including complex export health certificates that must be certified in person by a qualified vet.
The Cold Chain Federation estimates that new requirements could add up to £1,000 to the cost of a single multi-consignment lorry entering the UK, adding there were already signs the new red tape was deterring smaller artisanal producers from sending goods to Britain.
ScandiKitchen, a UK importer of Nordic food products whose clients include Ikea, Ocado and Lidl, has apologised to customers for the lack of their “favourite red sausages or your most-missed stinky cheese”, saying the new red tape has caused key suppliers to give up on the UK.
“We want our suppliers to remain, but it’s very hard for the more craft producers to put in the effort required to fill out the paperwork — for some it’s just a bridge too far,” said Jonas Aurell, managing director of ScandiKitchen.
Susann Schmieder, the importer at German Deli, which has imported German food products to the UK for the past 20 years, reported similar problems, saying that suppliers were giving up on many products after struggling to find government vets to sign off exports.
“The local veterinary office in Germany told our suppliers they don’t know how to handle information requests from the UK government, so we’re likely to cut our product range from 16 to four products,” she said.
Defra said it was confident that UK border posts had sufficient capacity to handle the expected volume of checks and that officials would minimise disruption to trade flows.
“The new necessary border controls will be introduced progressively following extensive consultation with the industry to protect the UK’s biosecurity from potentially harmful pests and diseases,” a spokesperson added.
This article was written by Peter Foster from The Financial Times and was legally licensed through the DiveMarketplace by Industry Dive. Please direct all licensing questions to legal@industrydive.com.