Britain-based organic food traders will be banned from next year from shipping products to the EU that were first imported from other parts of the world, Defra confirmed.
While the UK-EU trade agreement allows exports to the UK organic bloc until at least 2024, it does not allow equivalency to extend to re-export of imported organic products relabelled or repackaged to the EU. .
After months of uncertainty, last December the equivalency for these products was granted for an initial period of 12 months.
But as The Grocer first reported just over a week ago, there seemed little appetite to extend the deal within the EU, prompting Defra to confirm today that the equivalency agreement for the six organic certification bodies of the UK would expire at the end of the month. and which means that the goods will not be exportable to either the bloc or Northern Ireland.
Products shipped from Ireland to the EU via the UK could also be affected. 26 member states voted in favor of not extending the agreement, and only Ireland voted in favor of its continuation.
Amid mounting speculation earlier this week, Roger Kerr, chief executive of Organic Farmers & Growers, and one of the six British bodies to lose their status, said that any revocation “would represent a significant additional challenge and potential cost both. in terms of access to raw materials. ” not produced in the UK and for companies that have EU customers or suppliers of raw materials or EU manufacturing ”.
OF&G estimated that around 5% of the UK’s total organic finished goods market was exported to the EU, “but what percentage of that was ‘in or out’ of scope, we don’t know,” he added.
“Our view is that a significant percentage of this would have been consolidated and re-exported,” Kerr said.
A spokesman for Defra said that “we have been in talks with the Commission to find a mutually beneficial solution allowing the re-export of goods from third countries that have not been processed in the EU or GB.”
“We continue to work closely with the industry to expand and strengthen our export opportunities to third countries.”