LONDON – Loaded with tons of live crabs, lobsters and shrimps, trucks leaving the Scottish city of Oban to the south needed to reach their destination in Spain in 72 hours to ensure that the cargo would survive the trip.
But with Britain operating new post-Brexit trade rules, a journey that used to be routine is now a high-risk bet for exporter Paul Knight, managing director of PDK Shellfish.
“It’s like a roulette wheel,” said Knight, as he waved at two giant trucks, adding that although he spent tens of thousands of pounds on Brexit preparations, he was still terrified that delays in French ports would make much of his shipment perish.
“We are as ready for Brexit as we can and still face failure,” he said, adding that the effort to navigate the new trade arrangements pushed him close to the breaking point. “I’m exhausted, the pressure is so intense – it’s like I’m on the razor’s edge,” added Knight.
Since Britain completed the final stage of Brexit on January 1 and left the European Union’s single market and customs union, the world has shifted to British exporters to the continent and not in a good way.
Despite a trade deal struck by Britain and the European Union on Christmas Eve, promises made by Brexit activists that leaving the bloc would free companies from unnecessary bureaucracy now sound like a macabre joke. Shipments that were previously moved with minimal fuss now require bulky paperwork, including customs declarations and, for food products, health certificates.
A variety of problems have hit British companies, some of which have suspended sales to mainland Europe and even to Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, but now has special customs status because of its land border with Ireland , member of the European Union State.
But the complications pose a special threat to Scottish seafood exporters, many of whom depend on the European market because, they say, there is no similar demand at home.
Before dispatching a truck loaded with live crabs, Colin Anderson and three colleagues spent an entire day filling out the new paperwork. Even that left him struggling to secure a final document needed to move more than three tons of crab to Holland.
“We thought we were at the top, but we still don’t have all the documentation,” said Anderson, managing director of The Crab Company (Scotland), based in Peterhead, as he debated which route to choose for his shipment.
According to Jimmy Buchan, chief executive of the Scottish Seafood Association, a commercial organization, the new system is “the bureaucracy gone mad”. There are, he added, “so many certificates needed, and if they are not 100% aligned, even if it is an administrative error, the system rejects it.”
For companies that were already recovering from Covid-19 and a collapse in demand from the hospitality sector, the arrival of new business rules came as a blow.
In a video posted on Twitter, Lochfyne Langoustines and Lochfyne Seafarms said their stock was stuck in ports, that exports to the European continent had become impossible and that the company could be forced to close.
“Welcome to the modern world of Brexit and the mess it brings. It is unbelievable that we find ourselves in this position ”, he said.
According to Victoria Leigh-Pearson, director of sales for John Ross Jr., a smoked salmon producer based in Aberdeen, entire truckloads are being rejected by French customs authorities, apparently without explanation.
“It looks like our own government threw us into the cold waters of the Atlantic without a life jacket,” she wrote in a letter to the government.
To make matters worse, IT failures in France and Britain have compounded the problems, said Donna Fordyce, chief executive of Seafood Scotland, another commercial group.
The changes have triggered layers and layers of administrative problems, resulting in delays, border refusals and confusion, she said in a statement.
“These companies are not transporting rolls of toilet paper or widgets. They are exporting the highest quality perishable seafood, with a finite window to reach the market in the best conditions, ”said Fordyce.
Customers were rejecting some shipments and even products that sometimes lost value due to the aggregate travel time.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the death sentence for some companies,” said Mr. Buchan. “Some are losing tens of thousands of pounds and, in some cases, reaching hundreds of thousands.”
Instead of minimal bureaucracy, exporting fish to France is now a 25-step process. Like customs declarations, every shipment of fish and seafood needs health certification after inspection.
At ports, traffic is still flowing freely through the Canal, but this is partly because the delays are elsewhere.
The hub for transporting Scottish fish to French markets is DFDS, a Danish logistics company that also operates ferry services. He organized inspections in Larkhall, near Glasgow, where seafood is shipped before being taken to ports and then to the mainland.
But integration with the government’s tax and customs systems has not been smooth, forcing the company to implement slower manual alternative solutions. In Larkhall, there were delays in obtaining signed health certificates and other impediments from exporters who did not send the correct paperwork.
“Our people who were supposed to enter the information were overwhelmed because of the delays.” said Torben Carlsen, the chief executive of DFDS.
Consequently, the company is not accepting new orders from smaller companies, whose goods need to be bundled into a truck with a lot of different paperwork.
Since each shipment needs the correct certification, a problem with any of them can interrupt the entire load of the truck.
“We have been very strict,” said Carlsen. “And so, I believe, it makes everyone else make sure that if you don’t have your paperwork up to date, you won’t be able to enter the ports. Because if you do that and you can’t move, you risk much bigger operational and supply chain problems. “
As for the extra costs, the Scottish government estimates that further delays at the border, including new customs formalities, should reach 7 billion pounds, about $ 9.5 billion, annually for British companies.
Many Scottish exporters were offended because, while the British decided to spend several months going through many European trucks while the twists were resolved, France implemented the new rules from day one.
They want the government to negotiate concessions with the French authorities and, with polls showing the majority’s support for Scottish independence, the problems of the seafood industry are likely to increase London’s resentment. Most Scots who voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum wanted to stay in the European Union, but they were outnumbered by English and Welsh voters.
But while the system may become more efficient in the coming months as the initial problems are eased, it is unlikely to become significantly less bureaucratic now that the UK has left the European Union’s customs union and single market.
Inevitably, this means that millions more forms will be required of exporters and the government, which has urged exporters to expand their horizons and seek out non-European markets, has warned them for months to prepare for post-Brexit trade terms.
But for Knight, of Oban, no preparation can guarantee against the possibility that his highly perishable product will be stuck in a queue for hours behind other vehicles awaiting inspection on arrival at a French port.
French authorities are doing their best, he says, and two of his trucks have succeeded. But they traveled during the holiday period, when traffic was exceptionally light, a situation that is bound to change.
With little market for his premium clams in Britain, Knight said the only way to keep his company running was to continue playing export trade through the Channel, even if the odds were against him.
“At some point, we’re going to hit the wrong key on the computer or some document will have the wrong date,” he said. “It is not a question of whether they will catch me, it is when.”