Where are my favourite sausages?
At the moment you might be wondering what is happening to your favourite meat/fish/dairy products from the Nordics. Why is it out of stock?
Yes, it’s Brexit. Again. You may have assumed that this was all so very 2018, but no, rules are still changing and causing issues for the end consumers (that’s you).
The latest rule to come into force happened on 31st January 2024 which meant that every single product imported into the UK from the EU that is meat or fish (and some dairy products) has to have a so-called “vet certificate”.
What this means is that an actual Vet has to stand at the point of loading goods to the truck and look at the pallet of goods and say “these sausages look like the right sausages and I am a vet and I will sign this piece of paper”.
This is not a significant change if you are exporting a whole trailer full of one product – less so when your pallets contain maybe 50 different affected products of much smaller quantities. This is not only fiddly and takes time, but it is also costly as we must repeat it for each product, supplier and shipment, week in, week out.
We are not saying this is a bad thing. It is good to have order in things. It’s just the way things are now. The point is, however, that you are reading this because your favourite red sausages or your most missed stinky cheese is no longer on our shelves.
Why? Can’t we just do the paperwork?
Yes, we can, and we do. However, we can’t force the suppliers on the Scandi side think that filling out more forms and agreeing to new routines is a funky and fabulous idea. And while they are a lovely bunch, it’s much easier for them to just send things to the rest of the EU than bother with 50 packs of cheese bound for the UK. Frankly, we do understand that and we all grew up appreciating the free movement as a birthright.
At the moment we’re working hard on restoring import of goods. We are really good at form filling and on first name basis with the Defra helpline people. However, you need to bear with us a little longer before some of your favourites will be back on the shelves again.
Thank you for your understanding.
