New border controls are set to impose significant costs on businesses importing food and plants from the European Union, according to industry leaders. As of today, imports from Europe deemed a “medium risk” to UK biosecurity will be subject to physical inspection as part of a new border regime. This comes almost eight years after the Brexit vote and after facing five delays in two years.
Under the new system, a portion of imported goods such as fresh meat, fish, and dairy produce, will be physically checked by plant and animal inspectors. Importers are concerned that this process will disrupt supply chains, especially for perishable goods that have time-sensitive delivery requirements. These physical checks are in addition to new documentation requirements implemented three months ago, which include health certificates that must be signed off by vets and plant inspectors for every consignment.
The government estimates that these new measures will add over £330 million to annual business costs and contribute to a 0.2% increase in food inflation over the next three years. However, the Cold Chain Federation, which represents cold and frozen goods importers, believes the cost will be much higher and could reach billions of pounds. “We think there’s going to be a billion pound’s worth of extra cost put onto food coming through Dover port alone,” said chief executive Phil Pluck. “If you expand that to the rest of the country, you’re looking at all sorts of money, so it won’t be 0.2%, it will be substantially more than that, and the consumer will see that increase.”
The government argues that these checks are necessary to prevent the spread of diseases such as African swine fever into the UK. Christine Middlemiss, the UK chief veterinary officer, stated that “Now that we’re out of the EU and we can have our own biosecurity regime, we treat independently with other countries around the world so it’s important we’re managing our own biosecurity risks.” She also emphasized that the cost of implementing these checks is “negligible” compared to the cost of dealing with a major disease outbreak.
However, smaller independent food importers fear that they will be disproportionately affected by these new measures as they lack the resources and scale to absorb the added costs or establish European subsidiaries to handle the process. Stefano Vallebona, who has been importing high-quality European produce to supply London’s top restaurants for 40 years, believes that the new red tape will discourage small suppliers from doing business with the UK and ultimately reduce consumer choice. “We will have less interesting cheeses, less interesting meats, and probably more power to the supermarkets and less to independents because it’s going to be harder,” he said.
European importers also argue that these health checks are of limited value as they replicate the EU processes that the UK helped create over four decades and have already been living with for the past eight years without additional processes. Piotr Liczycki, managing director of Polish haulage firm Eljot International Transport, estimates that his customers will have to pay around £1 million in fees to the UK government this year. “Nobody can explain the difference between midnight and when the Brexit rules start up. It’s completely the same stuff, from the same factory, with the same quality, nothing has changed,” he stated.
Cabinet Office minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe defended the new measures, stating that “It is essential that we introduce these global, risk-based checks to improve the UK’s biosecurity. We cannot continue with temporary measures which leave the UK open to threats from diseases and could do considerable damage to our livelihoods, our economy, and our farming industry.” However, importers are calling for a solution similar to the one the UK has with Japan or South Korea, where officials from the UK government inspect plants in the exporting country and grant permission to send goods for a certain period of time.
The introduction of these new border controls has raised concerns about the impact on businesses and consumers. As the UK continues to navigate its post-Brexit relationship with the EU, the true cost of these measures remains to be seen.