What’s happening to food exports?Coming up on #bbcnews10 Bridport, Dorset fishing business owner Charlie Samway describes new 26 step process to export back across Channel what they catch in it... adamant a month in, having prepared extensively, these aren’t “teething problems..”

big one - newly compulsory Export Health Certificate - here being granted by visiting vet inspecting the fish (also required for many other foodstuffs) stamping every page and box, in English and French and sealing the lorry -which was then subsequently held at Dunkirk for 15 hrs

Govt suggestion these are “teething problem” did not go down well here nor at clients Waterdance at Brixham harbour (a firm visited by PM in August 2019 and promised “no unnecessary form-filling”) there they said it was “insulting” as value of catch falls a third...

Indeed major Brixham operator told me never been such a price differential between prices paid for same fish in UK vs France tells me “This indicates to us that customers are losing confidence in receiving UK product and that it will be fresh when it arrives..” ie not Covid issue

“every business has to pay the bills. And ultimately, if we see these issues persist, then taking boats to land into foreign ports is something that could realistically be happening with fishing businesses here in southwest of England, its not something we want to do” said Youell

quite something should English fisherman land in Brest because of export difficulties. happened with eg some Scot vessels going to Denmark...

Surely benefit from extra quota? but eg Waterdance: “we’ve got the difficulty of no deal, without really repatriating significant quota”

So fish is an extreme of example of issues here - as highly perishable, & highly profitable demand in the EU for UK fish not generally eaten here...
but retail sales to EU households of food requiring EHC - very difficult

Single load wholesale exports eg salmon managing better

But big industry food exporters also told me of significant issues re rules of origin/ non European ingredients...

Flour milled from wheat from outside Europe
Chocolate from cocoa
Rice processors.

Some unable as yet to alter supply chains already processing large tariffs

Government says its aware of “small number of issues” has provided £23m for fish exporters - but as yet unclear who exactly gets that - merchants dealing with price falls say its only for exporters. Government also promised increased vet capacity for the certificates above.

issue though is combination of paperwork above, which the companies I spoke to had throughly prepared, and how they are checked at the border in NL/ FR and sometimes differently at subsequent borders...

One idea - station UK trade officials there to feedback on avoiding delays

Govt could argue border officials on EU side are being officious and ask for less - but EU did and will link fewer checks etc to some degree of alignment.

Industry suspects Govt will wait until it imposes similar red tape on EU imports (starts in April) before such a process

Ultimately the UK inside EU helped design EU third country import regime, which is now applied to it. That regime was designed for frozen export of limited loads of niche foreign exports from afar, not perishable foods that need to fly through checks to customer within hours ...