General Discussion

" the government’s recently-unveiled doomsday no-deal scenario predicts severe food shortages within two weeks of leaving the European Union.

These shortages, the government claims, could see supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland running out of food within just a couple of days."

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/brexit-food-drink-shortages-gin-cheese-beer-crumpets-european-union-a8422831.html

Do you remember we used to have food mountains. Well now they are still here but they will only last about 6 -7 weeks. Butter, meat, vegetables, included.

So who is doing the scaremongaring now?

Not food shortages within a couple of weeks then but within a couple of months?

Where are these food mountains in the UK? 

Absolute dribble spouted by ardent remoaners. You think the supermarkets especially the EU based ones like Spar. Lidle and Aldi are just going to sit there looking at empty shelves. Get real their supply network is already geared up for a no deal Brexit. Bring it on and make our country great once more

Well if the EU based supermarkets are geared up for no deal then they will be aware that goods they wish to have imported into this country will be subject to customs checks/tariffs.

And as far as I am aware our ports are not geared up for such a no deal situation.     

Lynne, I only know of two locally, but there are many more dotted around the country.

Pinhoe Exeter has a huge freezer and cold storage for cheese, butter, some meat products, and the one at Cllumpton which I don't know too much about but I am told it is mainly to store meat.

So when you are told it is fresh -really, because how would you know?

And at some point they will run out of whatever it is they have in storage. And they will run out even faster if there is an increase in demand for whatever it is they have in storage if imported goods are taking longer to get to the supermarkets/these storage facilities.  

“Fruit and vegetables could be particularly vulnerable to price rises and lack of availability, because of the UK’s dependence on EU imports: around 40% of vegetables and 37% of fruit sold in the UK come from the EU.

For this reason Professor Tim Lang, from the Centre for Food Policy at City University London, described horticulture as “the most fragile of all the industries”.

 The level of price rises that will follow Brexit will of course depend on the trade agreement that is concluded between the UK and the EU. The highest price rises would likely result from a ‘no deal’ scenario, with all food imports being subjected to tariffs at WTO levels.

The Food Foundation stated: “WTO tariffs being applied to European imports, combined with changes in the value of the pound and increasing labour costs, could raise the price of purchasing enough fruit and veg for a family of four by £159 per year. The impact of this would be felt the most by households in the lowest 10%, for whom almost half (46%) of their entire food budget would be taken up with fruit and veg costs. These price rises would come at a time when fruit and veg consumption is already far below recommended levels”.

From: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeucom/129/129.pdf  

and this is an interesting read http://www.countryfile.com/article/can-uk-feed-itself

Do you remember ration books???????????

I remember them, I was so hungry I ate mine.

Just imagine the uproar, the hullabaloo 

Should our food end up rationed 

As per World War Two.

Well, we couldn't do nothing then about our rationed food except exchange what we didn't want with something that we did with someone else. So I doubt if it did happen and whose to say it won't, that anyone could stop it. If things are going tits up and the government appears to be struggling as to a way forward, then I suspect contingency plans for many things are already on someone's mind.

Not a lot of people still around who have had first hand experience of rationing during and after the war so food rationing/shortages would come as a bit of a shock to the vast majority.

Well it makes sense to me that plans should get made, just in case things go pear shaped on the issue of trade.

For with roughly 50% of the food on our shelves being grown overseas and not by ourselves, it’s very important for future days that we have enough food to feed the UK.  

As from the EU to Blighty much food gets imported, it’s really quite crucial this issue gets sorted.

 If in post Brexit Britain lorries clog up at Calais, then their fresh food for import may start to decay.  

And it goes without saying there’d be a to-do, if this food that we'd ordered took time to get through.

We have had some treacherous Prime Ministers I mean so far  from Ted Heath Who knew what meaning the Common market could be ,By which time it would

be too late. Anthony Blair and co.  going to war over Weapons of mass Destruction. To Teresa May who i gave more credit than she's worth.

Is there possibly an honest person out there who can stop Bullshitting the English Electorate?

Have I missed a page or have the E.U. sent out the U Boat Packs?

Nothing to do with Uboats.

Everything to do with custom hold ups and subsequent backing up of lorries (both sides of the channel). 

I am only sorry that Heath is dead and cannot witness his treasured dream is now in tatters.

food rotting so what, if it rots for us it will rot for them.

@b.o.liking

(for once) - words fail me.   

I don't really get all this talk about food shortages. First of all - what food will be in short supply and as a lot of our food is imported, does in mean that if we leave, they will stop supplying us. 

We are always looking for new markets as are other countries. when those other countries found us as a good market, why would they want to give it up?

I think a lot of it is scare mongering.

Lynne that makes a bloody change.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/topstories/asda-boss-warns-over-rotting-food-at-brexit-britain%E2%80%99s-border/ar-AAzLIQu

Another scare mongoring article. Do you really think that we are the only ones involved in the way brexit will play out when we leave. Do you really think that businesses that are supplying us now are not having some input. Do you really think that the supermarkets are going to reorder if the first lot had to be destroyed at the border controls. And who would be affected if that did happen- the businesses that supply us now? There is a lot of talk going on I am sure of that, but it is probaly talk that we know nothing about.

Project Fear again. Remoaners are very quick to accuse the Leave campaign as a pack of lies...maybe so for some of it (the number on the bus (yawn), which was exposed well before the vote), but they seem to forget how the Remain campaign foretold mass unemployment, thousands of pounds drop in wages, the sky falling in and asteroids colliding with planet Earth the day after the referendum if it did not go their way. Oh and don't forget Osborne's emergency budget that was going to raise taxes to unaffordable levels within weeks, as well as other dire consequences. These have not happened when they said it would, but the Liberal Elite cannot admit that they might, just might, be wrong. Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

it seems to me that considering half the population are obese problem solved. 

Jobs a goodun.

But it will be the fresh, healthy, nutritional food that will rot not the processed stuff full of salt and sugar and hydrogenated fats. 

If fresh fruit and veg become scarce then the prices will rise and even more people will eat a less healthy (and fattening) diet than they do now.

We are not a food self sufficient country.   We cannot, even if we wanted to, produce enough fruit and veg for the population.

But as Majorp has pointed out - from what T. May is proposing it does look as  though the concerns of business have been listened to and are being taken into account.

Some Brexitards seem to be having a problem with that though.

addendum: Yes I know I am now indulging in name calling but given his penchant for lavatorial expressions perhaps our ex foreign secretary should now  be known as Bogroll Boris the Brexiturd. 

Apples can be 12 months old,Fish can be 2 years old, Bread can be 12 months old, Potatoes 12 months old, Bananas 1/2 months old, Salad, Fruit,Veg, can be 3/6 weeks old, Milk 3 weeks old do i need to go on food is no longer fresh it's treated in some cases with chlorine wash like salad and then bagged all the oxygen removed and gases added to keep it looking fresh. 

"Brexitards" have a problem with the referendum result being ignored and Brexit not being delivered.  My choice of words for Remainers would be unprintable here.

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/categories/fresh/fruit-and-veg/three-quarters-of-fruit-and-veg-eaten-in-uk-is-imported/548771.article

The article shows how much we produce, how much we export.

If some of you would like to cogitate and digest what is written and who said what. Go ahead.

I hope you Brexiters enjoy your little England Xenophobic fantasy world. Shame you wont be alive to see how much you will have damaged you grandchildrens future :(

Nevermind, the I'm alright Jack mindset continues....

The likes of George Galloway and Dennis Skinner voted for Brexit. Hardly Xenophobes!

Everyone will have a colleague, friend or family member who voted for Brexit. To be disparaging about people just because they hold a different political /economic opinion is not nice and the division it sows will not help to serve future generations. We serve future generations best by finding common ground, resolving our differences and pulling in the same direction.

I thought this topic was about food shortages.

So people voting for Brexit to make the country independent from Brussels are Little England xenophobes?  I know who the bigots are around here.  But as Brexit is only going to happen cosmetically, nothing much will change.

I'll be honest.... all the references to "remoaners" and "project fear" got under my skin because it is a term to diss the opposition and silence debate.

I believe in my heart of hearts that brexit is a massive and dangerous mistake. I'm not simply looking for an argument. If I am wrong then I will be massively relieved and happy to admit I am wrong.

I also believe that such a simple ref falls well short of what was needed to make such a complicated decision and that goth sides were lied to and misled. For this reason I believe that the only logical anwser is to have a referendum on "the choice" or stay in. Anything less is truly a pisstake of "democracy"

We have already had a referendum to leave or stay in the EU, why do we need another? If people can't be assed to look at the facts instead of making assumptions, then they might, just might come to another turning.

But......it is only now, post the referendum, that lots of things are coming out in the wash as it were.

Not matters of opinion but of fact. Like the issues around the N.Ireland/RoI border. The 'just in time' supply chains. The customs union. The single market.

If it has taken some 44 years or so to set all this type of thing up then for the life of me I do not see how it can all be undone (if that is what ends up happening) in a short period of time.

If, if, we are to leave the EU then I believe it has to be done over a period of time so that the UK economy does not suffer. Because if it does, we all do.  

So, if we work on the assumption that both the Remain campaigners and the Leavers told, let us say, some terminological inexactitudes during the 2016 referendum then Scapegoat, as I understand the post, is arguing that we should all be able to vote again on what the final deal ends up being.

That could be:

1. No deal (leave anything and everything to do with the EU and to do so abruptly)

2. Whatever deal is agreed on between the UK and the EU (leave the EU but still be in close association with it) 

3. Stay in the EU.  

Seems like it isn't only me who sees a possible looming food shortage.

Attention all entrepreneurs!

You know we have Christmas hampers........... well............I reckon there just might be a market for Brexit hampers.

All full of EU produce bought before next March 29th and then given out to friends and neighbours just as the clock strikes 11.00pm on 29.3.19. 

Why not fill it with British produce and keep the money at home?

Because many of us eat/drink produce that comes in from the EU which is not/cannot be grown or produced here.

And if we go out of the EU with no deal and go on WTO tariffs it will all cost a lot more post March 29th 2019.     

Perhaps this is what we need to stop us over consuming.

“Nearly 80 percent of British food imports come from EU member states and if no trade agreement is struck Britain and the EU would have to treat each other as WTO members.

As an EU member, Britain pays no tariffs on the 20 billion pounds a year of food it imports from elsewhere in the bloc, but after it leaves the default option would be to levy standard tariffs set by the World Trade Organization.

These tariffs rise as high as 46 percent for Italian mozzarella cheese, and around 40 percent for supermarket staples such as Irish beef and cheddar cheese. Dutch tomatoes would face a 21 percent levy - though Britons could turn to drink instead, and pay just 4 percent extra for French wine.

Given the balance of food imports, the BRC estimates the average increase on tariffs would be 22 percent.”

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-tariffs/uk-risks-22-percent-tariff-on-eu-food-imports-if-no-brexit-deal-retailers-idUKKBN17M1LM