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”. Importers have to pay for this Vet visit, of course. Remember last time you took Fluffy in to get his shots? Vets charge.

From 30th April, the UK will double check all these again at the UK border and make sure every box is correctly ticked (this is causing additional delays to already delayed fresh goods a lot of the times).

This is not a significant change or charge if you are exporting a whole trailer full of one single 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.

On top of this, the UK customs side now also levy the import charges. These are done by Consignment. Every product that requires a check has a charge now that is added on top for the privilege of entering the UK.

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 sausages or your most missed stinky cheese is no longer on our shelves.

Why? Can’t we just do the paperwork and pay the extra money?

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 liverpate 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 (and some things, like Danish liverpate and red sausages, are unlikely to be back).

Thank you for your understanding. If you wish to read more about this, The guardian did an interview with our Jonas about it – read this here. Here Jonas is again in his Hi-Vis in the Financial times talking about the same thing.