As of January 31, all goods of animal or plant origin entering the UK must be accompanied by the sanitary and phytosanitary certificate required by the country.
This new regulation fully affects London-based businesswoman Encina Barragán, who is dedicated to importing Spanish sausages to the UK.
“It will be complete chaos because more documents are needed, and those documents have a cost, especially here in the UK, and they have already raised our prices by 5% more from the beginning, which is something they didn't do in Spain. And then that will add to the delay because getting All of these types of documents require time, and we're talking maybe an extra week.
These health certificates, divided into four categories, must be completed 48 hours before arriving at the border so that British officials have enough time to examine them.
“Like everything that is new, I don’t know if the staff here in the Kingdom will be prepared and if they will have the proper training to know how to manage this new type of documents and know how to put them in the system.”
This new regulation comes into force three years after Brexit, and represents another development for British companies. Encina Barragán is Spanish, arrived in the UK 32 years ago, and eight years ago set up her company called The Ojos Food. Brexit was a huge blow to their business.
“It affected us a lot because before we exported to France and other EU countries, and once Brexit was implemented, we had to stop exporting to all these countries. I think this was a mistake because previously we had a cake of 28 A piece and now we have a small cake of just one piece. The businesswoman explains that the power to expand and grow not only in my business but in any other business (post-Brexit) is very limited.
The most affected product imported by Barragán is canned fish, the costs of which have doubled since Brexit.
“For fish, you need a lot of certificates. Then the puzzle can't be finished, I say, until the goods are collected and the transport is actually prepared for it to arrive in the UK. You also need to give the registration number and the nationality of the transport. All this leads to incredible delays.
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