The UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) announced that it will not proceed with planned fruit and vegetable import checks during the summer of 2025.
This decision aligns with the recent UK government’s intent to finalize a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement with the EU, part of the new UK-EU deal aimed at establishing post-Brexit trade relations.
Defra emphasizes that this planned SPS agreement will “facilitate the reduction of barriers to trade, including routine import checks on SPS goods moving between the UK and the EU, and vice versa.”
Moreover, during the rollout of the new Border Target Operating Model (BTOM) import controls in 2024, an easement was imposed on medium-risk fruit and vegetables imported from the EU, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. This measure aims to provide businesses with additional time to prepare for incoming controls.
This easement temporarily exempted these products from plant health controls, initially set to expire on July 1, 2025. However, with the anticipated SPS agreement between the UK and EU, these checks will not occur, and the current easement will now extend until January 31, 2027.
The BTOM represents the UK government’s post-Brexit framework for managing imports, with a particular focus on SPS and safety controls. Its goals include enhancing biosecurity and streamlining border processes through a risk-based approach utilizing technology and trusted trader schemes. Although it was initially scheduled for phased introduction from 2022, its rollout has faced several delays, with key measures now set to gradually launch from January 2024.
In response to the news regarding the easement’s extension, Nichola Mallon, head of trade and devolved policy at Logistics UK, stated, “Our members will welcome the news that checks on fruit and vegetables moving between the UK and EU, and vice versa, will not be introduced this summer, given the additional bureaucracy, expense and time it would have costed.”
She further explained, “Traders and logistics businesses have the practical experience of moving goods across borders. They could foresee the difficulties these checks would have caused given the volumes of these perishable items that are imported from the EU every day.”
Mallon also highlighted other upcoming measures set to take effect this summer: “One significant and extremely costly change that is still expected to apply from July 1 is Phase Three of ‘Not for EU’ labelling on composite products, such as pet food, moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework.”
She urged that, “This expensive requirement will most likely be removed by the forthcoming SPS agreement and we would urge the EU and UK to take a more pragmatic approach to support businesses and minimize the considerable cost burden they are facing.”
