The Chief Executive of the UK's Fresh Produce Consortium, Nigel Jenny, spoke to the House of Lords Horticultural Sector Committee on Thursday (6 July) urging them to heed the consortium's warnings concerning the proposed border strategy.
Referencing the government's TOM (Target Operating Model), Jenney remarked: "Well, they've missed the first target because the target was to actually respond to the industry with guidance by the end of last month. This hasn't materialized and won't materialize for weeks, which puts huge pressure on the industry in terms of being able to prepare for the hard delivery dates that the government is currently suggesting."
"We are operating in a sector that grows and distributes highly perishable, highly sensitive products as quickly and efficiently as possible," he continued. "So frankly, from my industry's point of view, we believe the current proposed strategy will fundamentally compromise our industry's least cost, highly efficient supply chain from Europe, without a doubt."
"We don't manufacture widgets, we don't keep them in a UK warehouse for six months, hoping someone's going to buy them. Our produce is literally harvested, packed, and delivered within hours, not days. As such, the TOM provides some huge challenges for our sector in terms of compromising that just-in-time least cost to maintain both the quality of the products, but also the cost of the products," Jenney explained.
"We are extremely concerned that the current proposed government border strategy, which adopts government-managed border control points (BCPs), are frankly highly inefficient. We believe the current proposed strategy will fundamentally compromise our industry's least cost, highly efficient supply chain from Europe, which will have considerable and wide-ranging impacts."
"We will proactively, and we have for years now, offered solutions to the current BCP model, including the adoption of control points. They are facilities that are managed by our industry or our commercial partners. A Government managed BCP adds, brutally, no value for my industry," he continued.
"One of the things that we proposed several years ago but which didn't happen at that time is that we offered the government the opportunity to use our industries facilities to carry out these inspections. This wasn't an option that was considered appropriate at that time."
"We also suggested it would be wise to allow responsible businesses within the industry to be trained and accredited to complete official inspections. Because do you want a few hundred official inspectors managing your border security, or do you want thousands of people managing your border security?"
For more information:
Fresh Produce Consortium
Tel.: +44 01733 237117
info@freshproduce.org.uk
freshproduce.org.uk