After four years of test marketing, ASDA is taking down the refill stations that were installed at four UK stores. The proposition was simple: invite customers to bring in their own packaging (glass jars and the like) or use a new container from the refill station. They could then fill these from bulk containers, weigh the goods and take a till slip, to settle at the checkout. The fact that this project survived for four years suggests that ASDA did not lose any money with it: the retailer cites low consumer uptake as one of the main reasons for dropping the scheme. The story opens a whole raft of issues, far too broad to do it justice here, although there are some topics that we shall be revisiting in the coming weeks.
Where next?
The workload of maintaining post-Brexit trade with the UK is such that every day six people are diverted to troubleshooting red tape and overcoming administrative inertia for a major meat importer. This resource is additional to the routine business of managing a presence on the UK market in previous years. All around Europe, food companies are reconsidering the cost of shipping product to the UK. A number of Spanish pigmeat traders are already starting to throw in the towel on the British market and sell to Germany instead. The reasoning is clear: they know that their lorries will no longer face unpredictable treatment on arrival in customs sheds.
The Scandinavians have been selling food to the UK since the 1870s and the Danish meat sector is as firmly embedded in the UK economy as it has ever been. It operates on a scale that allows it to ship a high proportion of full loads, making it something of a rarity among the UK’s food suppliers, many of whom are seriously questioning the increased costs of a “world class” operating model.
This is not new, but for a few brief moments the British political climate might just let a few sparks of fresh thinking to take hold. It all depends on the extent to which the underlying structures of the UK’s food imports have been broken. Starting where we left off with the Brexit border tax, there is a short window during which some damage limitation might be implemented.
Top of the list of policy changes to make would be to improve the treatment of lorry drivers coming to the UK. Another objective that should be high on the list is a greater level of care and attentionrrdrþ when handling fragile goods. Fragile shipments of young plants have been refused by retailers, who operate in a very time sensitive market. The horticultural sector has been disproportionately hit by hamfisted inspection teams.
Defensive to the last, DEFRA has come out fighting and is accusing importers of deliberately making mistakes in the data entered into consignment details. For instance, there are six primary classifications for rice, a common component in ready meals. How complicated can DEFRA make it to identify the rice used in a ready meal, then? Well, the guidance for six customs codes topped 680 words and the text fills a sheet of A3 when reduced to 7.5 point. It details the rice varieties to be found. While quite interesting, it assumes knowledge and experience that is quite rarified. Oh, and you’ll need to bring your own standardised system to measure rice grains. In fact, it would be a useful addition.
Who will be left to pick up the pieces?
This is not the first time that the deliberate destruction of the British economy by the departing government has been discussed on this site, but we are in the final hours during which a national fiscal fiasco stands any chance of being resolved with any form of access to the original planning documents. It may well be that the origins of the UK’s stealth tax on food imports have already been shared with a shredder and the perpetrators will never be identifiable. Nor is there any guarantee that this would go any way towards clearing up one of the messiest episodes in British history. In the years since Britain left the European Union, it did not get round to establishing an integrated system for imports for years. Here is what DEFRA said in 2023: “Currently, imports from the EU and certain imports from Greenland, Faroe Islands and EFTA countries do not need to enter Great Britain via a BCP and are not subject to veterinary checks at the border.” (Source: http://apha.defra.gov.uk/documents/bip/iin/vcap.pdf)
Just two months later, and Britain is rolling out its three-phase Border Target Operating Model (BTOM). (The label ‘world-beating’ is optional.) Lorry drivers arriving in Britain have not been impressed by the service standards they have encountered on the ground (https://urbanfoodchains.uk/sevington-gives-cause-for-concern/), which is more of a hostile environment than a workplace.
It is time for the British government to get its borders in order, implementing the Border Transfer (BTMO) and charging a border tax called the Common User Charge. This month, importers will receive their first invoices for Common User Charge (CUC), a sneaky way of removing nasty swellings from collective wallets. Importers of animal and plant products that would usually be considered for food safety checks can expect to pay over the odds for driving a lorry off a ferry at Dover to join the UK road network. Hauliers booking a DFDS one-way ticket online to Dover pay three pounds for this indispensable service, while lorries carrying grouped consignments of SPS foods face open-ended bills in the hundreds or low thousands for the same access. The simple explanation is that Britain is playing catch-up: the European Union had everything in place to trade with the UK as a third country the minute it ceased to be a member state. Britain was convinced that it would somehow avoid third-country status by negotiating a favoured nation package. There was not even a sketchy idea of what a post-Brexit customs system might look like. The years passed, conveniently putting off the awkward moment when Brexit would be complete.
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DEFRA has gone from absentee administrator to nitpicking zealot overnight and is chafing over the accuracy of form-filling, notably for consignment detail on Export Health Certificates (EHC). Hang on to your hats, here is a sample:
“Continuous and/or deliberate non-compliance
It has come to our attention, that some traders and logistics companies are making continuous and/or deliberate errors including:
mis-declaring goods as low risk when they are medium;
or as medium when they are high;
not including a relevant Export Health Certificate (EHC) or Phytosanitary certificate.”
Or the consequences… :
Continued non-compliance within either the EHC or the CHED is not acceptable and will not be tolerated by Port Health Authorities (PHAs). Deliberate misdeclaration is a criminal offence. PHAs will be actively looking to identify such behaviour.
Where there is repeated non-compliance or evidence of misdeclarations, the appropriate authority will take statutory action. This will result in goods being held at a Border Control Post (BCP) for a physical inspection, which may lead to the consignment being ultimately returned or destroyed at cost to the person responsible for the load.”
Entering a conversation with a tone like that is doomed to become a monologue. Enough said.
