The UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is currently consulting stakeholders about the start date for British inspections of EU fruit and vegetables at the UK border. This seems to be a strong indication that the UK is considering postponing these inspections. Postponement would be good news for exporters of plants, flowers and trees to the UK, averting, for now, the border chaos they feared.
It would not be the first time the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) decided to postpone inspections of imported fruits and vegetables at the UK border. Initially, fruits and vegetables from the EU into the UK were due for compulsory phytosanitary inspections at the UK border as of 31 October 2024. Earlier this year, however, that date was first postponed by the British to 1 January 2025 and then to 31 January 2025.
DEFRA is currently visiting stakeholders to discuss the transition period leading up to 31 January, a ministry spokesperson informed. As of 31 January, the British will start inspecting fruits and vegetables. ‘Ministers are currently reviewing the date on which inspections will be introduced,’ the spokesperson said.
‘Factoring in postponement’
This suggests DEFRA is considering further postponement. “I believe that, obviously, they would not have engaged in this consultation round if postponement were undebatable. So, I believe that we can start factoring in another postponement, eventually, because I can’t imagine any stakeholders being opposed to that. In that case [i.e., if there is no opposition, AM], I can’t imagine that DEFRA has any reason left not to defer,” says Tim Rozendaal, Strategic Advisor at VGB.
In early August, Fresh Produce Consortium, the UK lobby organisation for companies trading fresh produce, announced that DEFRA was deferring inspections of EU fruit and vegetables at the UK border until 1 July 2025. The postponement would not apply to fruits and vegetables from non-EU countries. However, this message turned out to be incorrect: there had been no official announcement from Defra that it would postpone inspections. Nevertheless, DEFRA’s present consultation rounds do make a decision to postpone seem a likely scenario.
‘Fresh produce significantly more expensive’
Nigel Jenney, CEO of the UK Fresh Produce Consortium, welcomes any deferral of DEFRA’s fruit and vegetable inspections. At the same time, he expresses his concerns: “The border-control policy is fundamentally unsuitable for the fresh produce sector, which relies on quick delivery.” He fears that border controls will incur high costs and ultimately make fresh produce significantly more expensive for consumers.
“This leads to significant and avoidable additional costs and delays,” says Jenney, questioning who, where and how the British inspect fruit and vegetables. He claims that doing the paperwork for pre-notification, phytosanitary certificates and inspections in both the country of origin and in the UK leads to additional import costs of GBP 200 million annually that importers have no choice but to pass on to consumers. Jenney argues that companies should be allowed to carry out their own inspections, under regular monitoring by the UK government. This would lead to less paperwork and fewer delays.
Pushing for a new SPS deal
Tim Rozendaal would also consider the postponement of mandatory phytosanitary certification and inspections of fruit and vegetables to be good news. Keeping the effective date on 31 January 2025 will have a major impact on the exports of plants, flowers and trees. The British indicate they aim to inspect 3% of incoming fruits and vegetables. While that may not seem a lot, the flow of fruits and vegetables is larger than that of plants and flowers. “Sticking to 31 January does not make us happy. VGB maintains that it would be unwise to carry out so many new inspections while the inspection percentages laid down in the BTOM are far from being achieved,” says Rozendaal, “especially considering the timing, just before Valentine’s Day and the spring peaks.”
VGB continues to push for a new SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) deal between the EU and the UK. The new Labour government is prepared to make a deal on the free movement of people between the EU and the UK. Rozendaal hopes this may be used as a bargaining chip to secure an SPS deal in which the British scale down or even drop the border controls.
Meanwhile, exporters to the UK have been receiving their first bills for the common user charge, a fee due since 30 April for the operational costs of the government-run checkpoint at the UK border (Sevington). The amounts involved are hefty, though exporters could find out in advance how much they would have to spend on operational costs.
Sevington most expensive
Importers pay a common user charge on plants and flowers categorised by the British as medium and high risk, regardless of whether these plants or flowers are actually inspected. The charge amounts to GBP 29 per product type that must come with a phytosanitary certificate, with a maximum of GBP 145 for shipments containing five or more plant or flower species for which such a certificate is required. There is no common user charge on the import of ‘low-risk’ flowers.
At commercial border checkpoints, exporters only pay a charge on consignments that are actually inspected, though the amount per inspected lot exceeds the common user charge per shipment in Sevington. Still, since the British check only few shipments at the border checkpoints, exporters end up paying more in Sevington, where they pay for every shipment. This makes the total cost of inspection higher there than at a commercial border checkpoint.
According to data from GroentenFruit Huis, in 2023, over 700 million kilos of fruits and vegetables were exported from the Netherlands to the UK (incl. re-exports), worth EUR 1.2 billion. For the Netherlands, the UK is the second-largest foreign export market for cut flowers and potted plants, accounting for EUR 993 million (-7.1% vs 2022) and making up 14.6% of the total export value in this sector.
