Urban Food Chains

the links between diet and power

Sevington gives cause for concern
Importers face unpredictable bills from HMRC

There are no redeeming features of the purpose-built customs inspection facility close to the Eurotunnel terminal. Sevington will be remembered for its brutally sparse amenities, more an abandoned building site rather than a conduit of international trade. Even though the British taxpayer poured at least 120 million pounds into the place, there is no way that any of it went into amenities for lorry drivers, such as a food outlet for those kept on site for a day or more. An Italian driver was given directions for a MacDonalds takeaway more than a mile away, when he asked about catering arrangements during a 55-hour wait. Water is available for lorry drivers, but neither tea nor the continental working beverage of choice, coffee, is anywhere to be seen. 

The purpose of the visit is food inspection, but Sevingdon has a growing catalogue of problems.  There are no guarantees that having waited four hours or more to have goods inspected the goods will still be saleable at the end of the process. There is no way that HMRC will take any form of liability for breakages and rough handling of fragile goods, particularly plants. Retailers are refusing damaged consignments, in one case estimated at EUR 40,000 (GBP 37,700). 

Over the past six weeks since the second phase of BTOM, 2,500 Dutch lorries have travelled to the UK, with 125 being “turned out” in HMRC slang. The Dutch haulage industry body Transport en Logistiek Nederland (TLN), remains supportive of Britain’s BTOM plan, with a polite but firm report outlining the Dutch hauliers’ reservations  with the status quo, making tactful suggestions for improvements. At this point it should be made clear that while most people would assume that the Border Transfer Operating Model is an administrative framework to manage the flow of goods efficiently. There is a more sinister, or cynical view that runs through the British establishment from its very origin. Had the government spent £120 million or more on a state of the art logistical platform, eyebrows might have been raised. But spending on that scale to create an environment that brutalises all those who come into contact with it and pitilessly crushes any possible interest in wanting to move to Britain was fine. Publishing under his pen name George Orwell, journalist Eric Blair captured this elusive maverick mindset writing under the setting sun of a crumbling empire. Orwell’s accounts of such incidents as the shooting of a working elephant juxtaposes the credentials of the imperialist administrators and the lives of those they exploited. Only we wouldn’t say exploited if we could get out of it: Orwell saw to it that we can’t.

What today’s generation of administrators is doing would make sense to a commentator like Orwell. He would understand the previous government’s obsession with small boats: the symbolism of inbound asylum seekers; the fear and loathing of exotic languages; the lingering smell of spices that grow in crowded corners which are ill-suited to mechanised agriculture. These are the roots of racism and prejudice, tinged with guilt for the massacres that were carried out in the name of civilisation. We must first slay the ghosts of oppression that our ancestors pretended to ignore, hardening their hearts and blocking their ears the while.

It is against this backdrop that we need to look at the operational shortcomings of BTOM. Start with the inspection processes and the sketchy way they operate. EU sampling rates, for instance, would normally start at 100% for new third country businesses (Brexit assumes tabla rasa.) easing off  over a period of time to, say, 35% after a year so of solid compliance. Sevington is sampling 5% at most, and struggling with it. There is no way a long term target of 100% could be achieved, nor would it serve any useful purpose once compliance levels have been established. TNL is concerned by wide variations in prices for testing at privately-owned facilities, citing fees ranging from £300 to £750, with additional surcharges for weekends and bank holidays. This leads to uncertainty for costings, resulting in financial losses and operational constraints. What is more, any non-food consignments that are travelling on the same trailer as food products selected for testing face an average surcharge of £13. Go figure.There are also issues with the flow and quality of information coming back from BCP. The Dutch hauliers urged the British authorities to communicate in real time, since saving messages sent as an overnight email is not a lot of help in the real world. Likewise, linking the Common Health Entry Document for Plants and Plant Products (CHED-PP) with the Goods Movement Reference number (GMR) would make it easier to identify consignments that will undergo  testing later on. As for handling standards, TNL was scathing. Not least because HMRC does not take any liability for damage caused during product checks. The Dutch hauliers would like to see staff trained to a higher standard and suggest that drivers would be well-qualified to advise on reloading fragile plants after inspection. While on the subject of drivers, none of them took on the job to spend hours in a sensory deprivation decor, often for hours on end. They are routinely barred from leaving the site or are required to surrender the keys to their vehicles as a condition of going outside for a breath of fresh air. TNL is receiving calls from members who have lost money due to rough handling of fragile goods. There have also been cases of inspectors not turning up or being taken off one inspection to attend another. The lack of any form of product liability on the HMRC inspectors is a recurring theme, but the tone of the TNL assessment is constructive and polite, as the industry body offers to help to resolve some of the issues the HMRC faces. It has published a four-page report on the subject. Expect the temperature to rise in July, when the first batch of invoices go out for Common User Charge payments from April 30 onwards. There are suggestions that it will be tricky to match up consignments, locations and testing in a coherent narrative adding up to some serious money. Watch this space.

Dover puts food safety first

 Dover port health staff carrying out food safety checks are being sidelined by DEFRA, which is telling importers that their goods should be routed through Sevington. Before shipping certain goods, importers must pre-register the shipment using a system called IPAFFS which is short for Import of Products, Animals, Food and Feed System. DEFRA is telling everyone to delete the Dover port code from the documentation and  to change their IPAFFS point of entry to  Sevington.

Staff at Dover have been carrying out SPS food safety checks for a decade, but they have never found themselves at loggerheads with DEFRA before. The root of the problem is the Border Operating Model (BTOM), which is not set up to manage product assessments requiring detailed knowledge and experience. 

Assigning three levels of risk to food imports does not cover real life situations. Take High Risk Food Not Of Animal Origin HRFNAO, which is a detailed listing of food products that need to be checked for specific  hazards. These can include central European blueberries, which are checked for radioactive Caesium 137 from Chernobyl; peanut products from north and south America, which are checked for aflatoxins; or US fishery products, for which processing hygiene standards vary widely.

There is a statutory compliance angle to these product checks, which are regulated by assimilated European laws. At this point they are beyond the remit of BTOM and DEFRA is not authorised to change their enforcement. So instead, the ministry has been advising importers to amend the IPAFFS entry from Dover to Sevington.

In the meantime, Dover port health staff continue to carry out the food safety checks that keep the nation’s food safe.

Week 23 datacrumbs
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A world first: on-farm biogas liquefaction was demonstrated by Sublime Energie in the comfort of the sixth arrondissement of Paris this week. It may be good enough to put in a bottle, but, like the genie, you wouldn’t want it to get out…

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After a year and a half of reflection and planning, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has announced that it will implement a new operational structure on October 10. Details here.

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With no more than a month to go before the election, War on Want is writing to party leaders to remind them of the sort of changes that ordinary people want to see. Find out more here.

Week 24 datacrumbs
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Global warming is primarily the result of damaging policies and economic choices made by rich countries, while the impact is felt most acutely by poor countries and economies in the south. Tuesday June 11 is a Global Day of Action for Climate Finance, during which campaigners around the world seek justice for the victims of this imbalance. In the UK, War on Want is supporting a march from Trafalgar Square to Downing Street at 12 noon. Marchers will deliver a demand for positive action by prime minister Rishi Sunak at a summit of G7 member states in Turin next week. Link to the campaign here.

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LEAF (Linking Environment and Farming) is celebrating 30 years of sustainable farming on the weekend of June 26/27 with the return of the Groundswell festival event. More details here

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AHDB UK clean pig slaughter numbers for week 24 recorded a week on week rise to 11,000 head, bringing year to date slaughterings up to 151,000 head as of June 1 this year. (estimated figures) The year to date figure is up by 1,000 during this time, while carcase weights have hardly moved over the past week at 90.58kg with just over 11mm back fat. AHDB pig market data is here.

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Oil giants BP and Exxon are sufficiently frightened by grassroots campaigners to be planning to send 200 lobbyists to Canada this November in an attempt to delay a major international treaty that will reduce plastic packaging waste. International campaigns group Eko has a cunning plan to thwart their plans. More information here.

Dover’s double whammy

The UK has depended on imported foods and ingredients for centuries. The market mechanisms which make this possible are under attack – from the British government. 

At the end of April, it started charging a levy on certain food imports. Called the Common User Charge (CUC), it is currently applied to a number of plant and animal products which are subject to Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) checks. The supposed aim of the levy is to pay for wear and tear to the UK’s port facilities arising from HGV traffic. It is not being collected to pay off capital expenditure. Whether intentionally or not, the Common User Charge could destroy key sectors of the British economy. 

Projections of its likely cost to importers have risen steadily as civil servants have got a better understanding of how consignments are documented. The Common User Charge was first calculated as a one-off levy, taking the top five consignment lines from a single Common Health Entry Document (CHED). There can be more than one CHED for a consignment: they list commodity codes and the risk status of the goods in the consignment. Low risk products and goods in transit (to Ireland) are charged at £10 per consignment line, which rises to £29 for medium and high risk products.

When it became clear that a consignment can have more than one CHED those drafting the rules worked out that they were missing a trick. From an initial assurance that a common user charge would be capped at £145 and based on a single CHED, they became complex calculations across multiple CHEDs, totalling several hundreds to a thousand or two thousand pounds.

Importers of food to the UK using Dover could end up paying twice. Until recently, food safety testing was routinely carried out on products arriving in Dover. Now, drivers with consignments of animal or plant products that require SPS testing will be instructed to take their lorries to an Inland Border Facility at Sevington, 22 miles away, where a further Common User Charge will be due. The site also serves the nearby Eurotunnel terminal at Ashford.

Compare this to a basic ferry ticket for a lorry, like the DFDS cross-channel Spot ticket, which sells online for less than £300, of which six pounds go to the ports at either end of the trip, covering wear and tear on the roadways as well as port maintenance. The Common User Charge is 48 times more than the modest sum charged by a commercial shipping line. Dover port is owned by the town, thanks to a royal warrant issued by James I in 1604, meaning that the state has no stake in the country’s largest port. Not that this has stopped it from milking Dover like a cash cow. For a number of reasons, Sevington has been pushed for SPS testing by the Department for Transport, which has been responsible for the site since it opened.

When the question of double charging was raised, the response was unequivocal. “You will be charged the CUC regardless of whether the lorry is called for inspection or not, along with the Ashford Port Health Authority relevant charges,” (sic) a spokesperson for Dover port declared. The idea that treating the world with contempt might be inappropriate seemed to be irrelevant. Not sure that the two halves of the answer were in response to the same question, either.

Urban Food Chains understands that importers are unable to access any billing or account information relating to the first Common User Charge bills. On April 16 and 25, HMRC updated its guidance, explaining that the first CUC invoices would not be sent until 12 weeks after April 30, the date the CUC came into effect. After July 30, invoices will be monthly in arrears. There are no plans to include any consignment detail that would help businesses to identify the shipments.

The new system risks creating a hostile environment (see this post) for hauliers and importers alike. This would reduce both the availability of goods and drivers to move them, as well as pushing up prices.