But as the U.K. and EU negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal \u2014 which is expected to remove the need for most border checks on food imported from the bloc \u2014 business owners now fear these facilities will be rendered redundant.<\/p>\n
Nigel Jenney, CEO of the Fresh Produce Consortium, said several members had spent \u201canything from a few hundred thousand to several millions\u201d on control points to accommodate checks on imports of fresh fruit and vegetables and cut flowers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn good faith, the industry proactively responded to the requests of government; and now it\u2019s been hung out to dry, costing modest family businesses huge amounts of money,\u201d Jenney added.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bittersweet\u2019 deal<\/p>\n
Provender Nurseries, a wholesaler of plants and plant products that imports 80 percent of its stock from the EU, is one of many firms in this predicament. In 2024, it splashed out around \u00a3250,000 to convert a large general-purpose barn into a control point, the culmination of three years of paperwork.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking to POLITICO on site in Swanley, Kent, where workers were busy unloading a shipment of trees from Italy ready for inspection, Provender\u2019s site operations manager Stuart Tickner said the prospect of an SPS deal was \u201cbittersweet\u201d for the business.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fully support and back up the SPS agreement,\u201d Tickner said, pointing out that it would decrease border friction with the EU. \u201cBut at the same time, we’ve spent a lot of time, money and effort to achieve it [the control point]. So it\u2019s gutting that it\u2019s got to go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But as the U.K. and EU negotiate a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal \u2014 which is expected to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[115255,768,802,748,28,5168,803,2438,728,2000,299,5187,1699,64771,4884,475,806,1197,2199,7697,11666,11585,7154,1201,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-712196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-angela-eagle","9":"tag-borders","10":"tag-brexit","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-buildings","13":"tag-construction","14":"tag-daniel-zeichner","15":"tag-department","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-eu","18":"tag-europe","19":"tag-european","20":"tag-european-union","21":"tag-fruit-and-vegetables","22":"tag-great-britain","23":"tag-imports","24":"tag-industry","25":"tag-investment","26":"tag-italy","27":"tag-ports","28":"tag-produce","29":"tag-public-affairs","30":"tag-software","31":"tag-trade","32":"tag-uk","33":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115936655291397900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712196","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=712196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}