AIBU to be worried about what the Director of the Food and Drink Federation said on the radio this morning?

[borntobequiet]

I get up early and like to listen to Farming Today on the radio (really interesting and informative about far more than just farming technicalities). This morning they interviewed Ian Wright, the director mentioned above. He was definite that leaving the EU without a deal would be devastating for both imports and exports. It would result in total logjams at ports, with just in time deliveries held up for considerable periods of time, and would impact very seriously on food availability in shops. This is all based on the government's own technical notices published recently. Here's a link to the programme (hope it works as they had an error message up earlier):
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj8q
And here is a link to the Food and Drink Federation's statement on their website:
www.fdf.org.uk/news.aspx?article=8062
What worries me most is that this doesn't seem to be properly reported on mainstream BBC programmes or in much of the print and broadcast media.

[VeryBerrySeptember]

Government advisers do seem to live in a different magical reality sometimes don't they!

Is it a metropolitan sense of limitless possibilities?!

[placemats]

There will not be a 'no deal' Brexit simply because of Northern Ireland, thorny and impossible to police.

I'm fairly skint at the moment but I will never buy chlorinated chicken imports from the UK.

[FishesaPlenty]

I'm guessing we'll still have milk although if the lorries can't get fuel, that could also be an issue

Why would lorries not be able to get fuel? What aspect of Brexit could cause problems to the supply of fuel? Oil is literally the world's most widely-traded commodity. If the entire EU sank into the sea tomorrow we would still have fuel, no tariffs, no barriers, no nothing.

[placemats]

The UK and NI can always adopt this approach:

[BlindAssassin1]

For every 10 minutes a lorry is held up at Dover it takes an extra hour to get the food on the shelves.

While I don't think things are going to descend into anarchy there is definitely going to be disruption. I don't think most people are taking this seriously. I work in food retail and the public really didn't cope very well tbh with the snow. There was a lot of moaning that there was no fresh milk on the shelves and that they thought warehouse staff were just lazy (!); there is such a narrowminded understanding of the food chain in this country.

I'm definitely keep my cupboards topped up.

[Oblomov18]

import/export wise, getting tomatoes from spain etc, I think Brexit will be bad for a bit, but will then calm down.

I too think we should eat closer to home. but brexit isn't really the way to encourage that!!

But to the poster who said 'if you only want to eat tomatoes in your salad for a few months of the year', well actually, we are now a bit spoilt, want things all year round - we used to. only eat stuff in season. Maybe we need to go back to that, more?

On the thread 'how different food was only a few years ago', apart from findus crispy pancakes people said they ate more in season, back then: we ate green beans, when green beans were available: tangerines and satsumas are best at Christmas. strawberries are best just before wimbeldon - tasteless most of the rest of the time.

[VeryBerrySeptember]

No the snow thing showed it up.
The milk! the bread! The local Facebook pages!
Soup ingredients sold out too: onions carrots and the like.

Our local shop was very good and "rationed" out the supplies they received in.

I found goats milk was good. Coconut not so much. This year I'm getting some powdered milk in (ok in a coffee) and evap for some old style puddings.

[BlindAssassin1]

I'm guessing we'll still have milk although if the lorries can't get fuel, that could also be an issue

If the dairy can't move it quickly enough it will be tipped down the drain.

Why would lorries not be able to get fuel?
As far as I understand it, no product, is moved across the world and especially in this country without specific process and procedures in place and followed through to the letter. If those processes and procedures are no longer relevant and they're suddenly obsolete, it is going to cause disruption.

Industries want to plan, and god willing they've got back up plans to shift food, materials and fuel around the country. But really until we've got the go ahead on what's happing, industries can't put those new procedures in place.

[FishesaPlenty]

For every 10 minutes a lorry is held up at Dover it takes an extra hour to get the food on the shelves.

No it doesn't! What a ridiculous thing to say.

If the lorry's held up at Dover for (a predictable) 10 minutes then the worse-case scenario is that it (predictably) arrives at an RDC 10 minutes later. That's no worse than a new set of roadworks on the M1.

The actual issue is that if every lorry is held up for an extra 10 minutes then the 30th lorry off the boat is there for an extra 300 minutes - 5 hours. There aren't big-enough holding areas and the ferries can't sail until everything's disembarked. If the ferry can't sail then there's a queue of trucks at Calais waiting for it

[FishesaPlenty]

Why would lorries not be able to get fuel?

As far as I understand it, no product, is moved across the world and especially in this country without specific process and procedures in place and followed through to the letter. If those processes and procedures are no longer relevant and they're suddenly obsolete, it is going to cause disruption.

It's oil. Brexit will cause no extra customs procedures, no extra queues at ports, no reliance on the Single Market or trade deals. We already get as much oil as we want from wherever we want it (mostly from outside the EU, although a lot goes through Rotterdam first - that makes no difference though) without any delays. The situation will be exactly the same after Brexit.

I'm a very strong remainer if it makes any difference, I don't like misinformation whichever direction it comes from.

[5Yearplan4000]

So much scaremongering going on. It’s disgraceful, and all part of the not so subtle Blair and Soros campaign to halt Brexit.

[BlindAssassin1]

For every 10 minutes a lorry is held up at Dover it takes an extra hour to get the food on the shelves.

No it doesn't! What a ridiculous thing to say.

This statement was said on the radio by someone in the food distribution industry. Being held up at the port by 10 minutes does not mean you are only going to be 10 minutes late. Or held up five hours therefore 5 hours late. And neither does it mean once its moving again, poof! food will be on the shelves.

This is going to be about domino effects across the country for the whole of the food chain because of the nature of the 'just in time' set up we use at the moment. This is what people are saying about food and products getting through procedures and processes.

[Havanananana]

About 50% of the food in your supermarket comes from the EU; either because it is grown or made there or imported via there. 10,000 lorries and containers arrive in the UK every day carrying foodstuffs. If this traffic is curtailed, or significantly reduced, the knock-on effect is less food in the shops. If all lorries have to be checked at the arrival port, the capacity of the ports and ferries is reduced significantly. If only 3,500 lorries a day can clear the ports, then 2/3 of the imported food immediately disappears from the supermarkets. That means about a third of supermarket shelves will be empty.

50% of the food consumed is UK-produced. But it often uses ingredients from the EU. A frozen pizza is topped with Irish cheese, Danish ham and salami, Italian tomato, Dutch mushrooms etc. No ingredients means no pizzas, and other products, so another supermarket shelf is bare.

UK food is picked, processed and delivered by a workforce, of which around 50% are from the EU. If these people go home, food production is hit - crops are not picked, meat is not processed. EU commercial driving licenses become invalid in the UK, so food deliveries are reduced. Meat production is overseen by vets, who ensure that welfare and hygiene standards are maintained. 90% of these vets are from the EU. Their qualifications may no longer be valid in the UK after Brexit. No vets means no meat production, and more empty shelves.

So supply-chain problems mean that somewhere between 30% and 50% of the shelves in the supermarket will be bare - the food is simply not available to fill them.

Under normal circumstances (i.e. deliveries and supplies are normal and customers only buy what they need each week) there is about 6 days worth of goods available in the supermarkets at any given time.

In the example above, up to half of this has already become unavailable, so now the shops only hold 3 days worth. This in itself is not a problem unless people begin to panic. Instead of buying what they usually need, customers look at the empty shelves and decide to double-up on purchases, meaning that the 3 days stock is gone in a day and a half or even quicker - the less food there is on the shelves, the greater the urgency to buy a bit extra. Clearly this is only an option for those who can afford it.

The government has already stated that plans are in place to stockpile food. This has its limitations, as perishable food cannot easily be stored and there is insufficient warehouse capacity to store food in. 6 weeks worth of food would require a warehouse 6 times the size of your local supermarket - for every supermarket and shop in the country.

Stockpiling food is also only a temporary solution. Stockpiling 6 weeks worth of food just means that the country hits crisis-point in mid-May instead of at the beginning of April.

Will this actually happen? Nobody knows, but it is a distinct possibility, and the government needs to be clear about how it will mitigate the problems that this would cause.

As has happened when there have been food shortages due to the weather (e.g. snow last winter) or fuel strikes, the shops could impose their own informal rationing system, limiting customers to what they can buy.

But if food supplies really are reduced to 50% of what is required, then a more formal rationing would have to be put in place by the government to ensure that food is equally and fairly distributed and doesn't just go to those who can afford it or those with the sharpest elbows.

[FishesaPlenty]

So much scaremongering going on. It’s disgraceful, and all part of the not so subtle Blair and Soros campaign to halt Brexit.

Rubbish. It's just legitimate concerns. I've not seen any comments anywhere except Mumsnet about fuel shortages - if there are any then I'd like to know because it's one of my areas of interest.

The worries about queues to get goods into the country are entirely well-founded. The industry expectation is an extra day (and around £300 cost) on every load.

[bellinisurge]

People can blah blah blah how they think it's going to be brilliant (or the opposite) but please make sure you have a buffer of food in.

[AlphaBravo]

Best stockpile some diet shakes and ration packs to make sure you have some food in. Buy a new deep freezer too and get filling.

[Satsumaeater]

Why would lorries not be able to get fuel

Because it is imported. The sort of oil we produce from the North Sea isn't the sort you use in cars and lorries. But I have to say I am sceptical that tankers would be prevented from docking!

[manicinsomniac]

I can easily imagine that there will be very short term chaos.

I find it very hard to picture a long term problem in food supply to the UK. Not saying it couldn't happen, it just seems so unlikely in a country of our wealth and position.

We only produce between approx 50% and 60% of the food we consume (depends on the measure used) and are unlikely to be able to better that by much

It probably wouldn't actually hurt us, as a nation, to consume 40-50% less food. Or waste 40-50% less food. But of course it wouldn't be the people who could or should cut back who would end up having to. It would be those who are already struggling.

[lonelyplanetmum]

If the Chief Execs of the Food and drinks federation, and the Road Haulage Association both kept quiet, they'd be guilty of gross negligence.

It is dangerous scaremongering to dismiss their genuine concerns.

[Satsumaeater]

Stockpiling 6 weeks worth of food just means that the country hits crisis-point in mid-May instead of at the beginning of April

I think people are rather hoping that minds would have been concentrated by then and a transitional deal will be signed, pronto. After all, EU citizens will be affected by food shortages too.

[VeryBerrySeptember]

Alpha I'm more a tinned sardines, pineapple and evap sort.

[FishesaPlenty]

Being held up at the port by 10 minutes does not mean you are only going to be 10 minutes late. Or held up five hours therefore 5 hours late

Yes, it clearly does mean that! If it delayed the driver such that he was out of his permitted work/driving hours before he got to the delivery point then it could mean a 9 (or 11) hour delay on the delivery but otherwise 10 minutes delay en route means 10 minutes delay at delivery.

I can promise you that I've more experience with delays in haulage than your 'someone in the food distribution industry'. 10 minutes delay anywhere can only possibly mean a one hour delay if it's unexpected and means the load doesn't meet a necessary connection with someone waiting for it.

Think about it.

[Havanananana]

We only produce between approx 50% and 60% of the food we consume (depends on the measure used) and are unlikely to be able to better that by much

It probably wouldn't actually hurt us, as a nation, to consume 40-50% less food.

That's not really the point. The UK is self-sufficient in yeast and wheat, but not in cheese, vegetables and meat - a pizza base is not very tasty without any toppings.

[borntobequiet]

Even one lorry held up for a few minutes can have a serious knock on effect - look at how those inexplicable traffic slowdowns on motorways happen, it's a similar situation:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/7544692/Phantom-traffic-jams-explained.html

[bellinisurge]

Pop over to the Prepper topic. Plenty of advice on there of the "don't panic/prep sensibly" variety .