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Northern Ireland faces disruptions to its food supply as Britain’s suppliers are unaware of the Brexit-related paperwork required to ship goods to the region, business leaders said.
Trucks are arriving in GB ports with incorrect or missing documentation delaying their passage through the Irish Sea, they told MPs on Wednesday.
Many operators in Britain seemed unaware that since 11pm on New Year’s Eve, Northern Ireland was enforcing EU customs rules in its ports, meaning that goods crossing the Irish Sea from other parts of the United Kingdom were subject to customs controls, Seamus Leheny, of trade in goods. body Logistics UK, told the Northern Ireland affairs committee. “We had trucks arriving in Belfast without any documentation … it is the lack of preparation on the part of GB.”
A large manufacturer had 15 food trucks bound for Northern Ireland stuck because they lacked customs declarations, Leheny said. He cited another company that shipped 285 trucks to Britain, but only 100 returned, causing a disruption in supply chains. Another company solved documentation problems after studying a YouTube tutorial.
Leheny said port and customs officials are working hard and flexibly to minimize disruptions, but urged the government to improve communication so that carriers are not left to sort out paperwork on their own.
Aodhan Connolly, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, told MPs that the authorities in Belfast and London needed to “shout from the rooftops” so that suppliers and parcel companies understood the new rules. “This is a very turbulent time where decisions have to be made quickly,” he said.
Sainsbury’s has been forced to stock some of the supermarket shelves in Northern Ireland with Spar brand products. Buyers from Tesco and other chains have reported empty shelves in some sections, especially refrigerated foods.
England, Scotland and Wales left the European Union single market for goods on December 31, but Northern Ireland did not. Products containing animal parts require export health certificates in accordance with EU regulations.
Ian Paisley, MP for the Democratic Unionist Party, said the special arrangements for the region had been a “disaster” and justified ditching the Northern Ireland protocol, which had cleared the way for the final Brexit deal between London and Brussels.
Brandon Lewis, the secretary of Northern Ireland, told BBC Radio Ulster that companies were adapting to the changes. “I think people will see, as things settle down, that things will flow like they did in 2020.”
