Nigel Jenney, Chief Executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), has emerged as the leading voice for British food importers left reeling after yet another government U-turn on post-Brexit border checks.\n<\/p>\n
As businesses count the cost of millions wasted\u00a0on now-redundant infrastructure,\u00a0Jenney is demanding clarity, compensation, and common sense from the UK government.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe industry cannot prepare because it doesn\u2019t have adequate information on time and has no confidence in the UK government because they say one thing and do another,\u201d Jenney said. \u201cWe\u2019ve already, as an industry, shown commitment. We have invested huge amounts of money, millions of pounds, in building infrastructure in good faith at our own cost to allow goods to be inspected.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years, we\u2019ve been urging the government to engage properly with industry and provide clear, consistent timelines for import requirements,\u201d continued Jenney. \u201cThe fresh produce sector alone has invested millions \u2013 with no grant funding \u2013 in specialist inspection facilities at the government\u2019s request. These are now largely underutilised due to a deliberate failure to provide enough official inspectors. Without urgent action, these sites will become white elephants.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
His comments follow the government\u2019s last-minute decision to once again delay the introduction of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on food and plant imports from the EU \u2013 the fifth such postponement since Brexit. Businesses that had taken the government at its word and invested in readiness are now facing financial turmoil.\n<\/p>\n
Among them is PML Seafrigo, which spent more than \u00a37 million on a new customs facility in Kent to process perishable goods. That investment may now go to waste.\u00a0\u201cWith what the government has just done, the writing is on the wall,\u201d said Mike Parr, chief executive of PML Seafrigo, which manages cold supply chains for perishable imports.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spent all that money training our guys in the process, and it\u2019s going to be of no use now.\u201d\u201cWe don\u2019t know when these regulations will come into force,\u201d Jenney said. \u201cWe are just starting the southern hemisphere citrus season. These non-EU products and many more may be subject to new regulations, we just don\u2019t know.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s beyond frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Jenney, Chief Executive of the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), has emerged as the leading voice for British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-139341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114586815449113792","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}