UK flower industry thrown into chaos by new Brexit border checks

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Firms said food and plant checks and Latin names causing costly delays with lorries waiting hours in first week of post-EU regime

But that is one of the problems that confronted British businesses in the first week after the government introduced physical checks on some food and plants from the EU.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had told the industry that it would aim to check between 3% and 5% of consignments containing “medium-risk” products such as cut flowers. Freddie Heathcote, owner of Green and Bloom, a flower and plant wholesaler, said that each one of his daily trucks had been flagged for inspection. On Wednesday, his driver arrived at the border control post at Sevington at 11pm.

Now exporters need to fill in Dutch export paperwork and British import paperwork before they can embark, and any delays mean they risk missing the ferries. Since the new checks started on 30 April, a few are meant to be inspected by officials at Sevington, and delays there mean they cannot reach the UK’s main flower centre, New Covent Garden Market, in time for the day’s deliveries.

Ian Shuttlewood, a director at PML Seafrigo, a customs and logistics company, said that the new checks had been hard for the flower industry. “From what we’re hearing, there have been slightly more flower checks than was expected. A lot of the big nurseries had been able to do checks at their own premises, which they’re not allowed to do now.”

 

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