Lack of vets delays British meat exports to the EU
There is a four-day delay for British meat shipments to the port of Rotterdam and the situation tends to become disastrous for the companies that are using this route to export perishable products to the EU market. "We've had more alarming reports this week from the Port of Rotterdam of large backlogs of lorries being delayed up to four days due to a lack of Official Veterinarians, which for perishable goods is disastrous. Despite having had seven months experience of post-Brexit trading with EU customers and being fully conversant with the new rules and procedures, British meat companies are still around 20% down on business," commented the British Meat Processors Association (BMPA) in a note.
BMPA puts this on behalf of the mountain of bureaucracy, paperwork and veterinary checks that are now needed to send products of animal origin to the EU and urges the Government to reach a deal with Brussels in a form of a Veterinary Agreement.
"Much of the difficulty exporters are having would be solved by forming a Veterinary Agreement with the EU which would instantly negate the need for most of the current bureaucracy. And it's worth pointing out that our continental suppliers should be having the same problems right now, but the UK Government has had to continue waving through shipments without any checks because the necessary border infrastructure, staff and IT systems are still not in place here in the UK," added BMPA.
A similar situation was reported at the beginning of the year, causing consistent losses for British meat exporters.
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