UK flower industry thrown into chaos by new Brexit border checks

Of all the effects of Brexit, probably the least anticipated was that flower exporters and customs officials would have to learn Latin.

But that is one of the problems that confronted British businesses in the first week after the government introduced physical checks on some food and plants from the EU.

Traders said they had faced far more checks than they were led to believe would take place and in some cases lorries had been held for hours before being waved on without inspection.

The long waits have been a significant problem for some in the flower trade, which relies on timely imports from the Netherlands.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs had told the industry that it would aim to check between 3% and 5% of consignments containing “medium-risk” products such as cut flowers.

On Saturday, Defra insisted it was meeting this target, but some flower wholesalers said every one of their lorries had been pulled aside for checking and that customers had missed deliveries because their flowers were stuck at the new £147m facility at Sevington in Kent.

Customs brokers, speaking anonymously, said they believed they were facing checks on far more than 3% of their consignments.

Many have also struggled with the new Ipaffs (Import of products, animals, food and feed system) computer system, because some plant and flower names were missing – and a decision to refer to them by their Latin names has caused headaches for importers.

Freddie Heathcote, owner of Green and Bloom, a flower and plant wholesaler, said that each one of his daily trucks had been flagged for inspection. On Wednesday, his driver arrived at the border control post at Sevington at 11pm.

“He was told to wait where he was,” Heathcote said. “He sat there for seven-and-a-half hours and at no point was his truck opened. And then he was told he could leave at 7.10am.

“We had in the region of 50 wholesale orders going out the door on Thursday, but nothing arrived.

“So we weren’t able to service those customers.”

About 80% of flowers sold in the UK come from the Netherlands. They are sold at auction in the morning, then transported on ferries between about noon and 4pm. Before Brexit, they would simply be delivered to wholesalers in the UK overnight, to be shipped out to customers less than 24 hours after leaving the Netherlands.

Now exporters need to fill in Dutch export paperwork and British import paperwork before they can embark, and any delays mean they risk missing the ferries. Since the new checks started on 30 April, a few are meant to be inspected by officials at Sevington, and delays there mean they cannot reach the UK’s main flower centre, New Covent Garden Market, in time for the day’s deliveries.

Johan Heemskerk, the co-founder of Klahee Flowers, said his customers relied on timely orders for weddings and funerals, and that their longest delay had been nine hours. “The new inspections are causing significant delays, which are problematic for us and our customers,” he said.

“A delay of more than nine hours can mean that the flowers arrive too late for a wedding, with all the consequences that entails.”

John Davidson, co-owner of Tom Brown Wholesale and a board member of the British Florist Association, said that 15 trucks had arrived in the UK last Tuesday, the first day of checking. “Originally only one truck was flagged for a check at Sevington,” he said. “However, mid-journey all of them received a text and email directing them to Sevington.

“Upon arriving, the administration [there] informed the drivers they were not sure why the status had been changed and blamed it on a technical error – after a slight delay the trucks could progress.” Things had improved towards the end of the week, he added.

Ian Shuttlewood, a director at PML Seafrigo, a customs and logistics company, said that the new checks had been hard for the flower industry. “From what we’re hearing, there have been slightly more flower checks than was expected. A lot of the big nurseries had been able to do checks at their own premises, which they’re not allowed to do now.”

He added that Defra officials had been working hard to make the Ipaffs system work, but there were still issues. “You need to put the original Latin names, which is an absolute nightmare for someone like me that never did Latin,” he said.

“You have cheat sheets so that if you’re putting in blueberries it will give you the Latin name. We found that there are a lot missing [on the system]. We’ve had to put things through as perhaps chrysanthemums instead of, I don’t know, roses or something like that – we’ve had to declare it as something different because it’s not been there.”A customs broker, who did not want to be named, said drivers arriving at Sevington were frustrated by long waits. “You cannot have trucks sat for nine hours missing all of the distribution,” they said. “It directly costs the industry a huge amount of money. The shelf life of flowers is not very long.”

Defra said there had been a small number of cases where technical and information errors made by businesses had resulted in longer lead times for clearance. It said it had been engaging with companies on the need for inputting data accurately and said it was working closely with industry.

It said: “Claims of disruption due to new checks are false. Our teams have been working closely with traders to ensure checks are completed efficiently and swiftly.

“We continue to work with traders to ensure all of their documentation is accurately filled out before starting their journey.”