Brexit red tape has caused a well-known business serving the expat community in Belgium to drastically change its business model.
Stonemanor, which has shops in Belgium (Sint-Genesius-Rode and Everberg), has suffered serious delays in shipping goods from the UK, caused by increased bureaucracy since the UK exited the EU in 2020.
It means imports of fresh goods has ceased and most good now come via the Republic of Ireland.
The store’s manager Ryan Pearce,on the main issues caused by Brexit, said, “The biggest are the limitations in cost effectively getting goods direct from the UK to Belgium.
“Normally we are importing thousands of different types of goods per week and it makes the process very costly. So we now limit our range of goods coming direct from the UK and order mostly bulk purchases to simplify this process and keep the pricing more attractive for customers.Also, the customs process can (and has done previously) caused delays in shipping, which is why we are not able to import fresh goods from the UK anymore.”
He says that if a fresh shipment gets delayed by 1-2 days his business risks throwing away between €10,000 to €15,000 worth of goods at any one time and the time to financially recover from that “would be too much to risk working on retail margins.”
“Also,” he goes on, “many of the products that we would want to supply using the chilled supply system would, post Brexit, now require veterinary certification which, again, adds to the cost of the goods.”
Despite increased red tape his business now boasts nearly 90% of the product range it had before Brexit including “new exciting product ranges that we did not have before.”
He says, “The Irish supply of sausages and bacon has been extremely popular with our customers with shoppers in general preferring the quality and the price of the supply from Ireland, more so with the bacon.”
He goes on “We were closed for two periods at the beginning of 2021, totalling about 3 weeks. This was whilst we were waiting for supply chain from Ireland to be worked out.But we were not the only business affected at this time as there was a huge bottle neck whilst many business were finding their feet with new logistics routes.”
He explained the new business model, saying, “We receive 2 shipments weekly from the Republic of Ireland. These are chilled, frozen and dry goods. It takes 24 hours longer to get the goods here, compared to pre-Brexit from our UK warehouse but, because this is EU to EU (ie from one EU country, Ireland, to another, Belgium) the paperwork process is simpler than exporting from UK to EU.”
Importing goods via the English ports, something the business, first launched in 1982, had done for many years, is now a fraction of what it was.
He says, “The customs declaration for each category for goods takes up the most time, which is why we have a much smaller range coming direct from UK. We now work very closely with a smaller Belgian customs office.The process has been working well for us for the past year. However there is no shortcutting on any of the paperwork otherwise issues will happen.
“Currently, there is no other way to make our process more efficient.”
Some imported products from the UK now require veterinary certification, he says. Generally, this applies to any product containing animal products or a mix of animal products plus items that also contain a high percentage of dairy within the product mix.
Although it is still possible to import these items they will, now, often be inspected by customs.
But things are looking up, he says, adding, “We are now in position where trade has normalised and we are back to operating on similar levels to pre Brexit.”
Knowing Brexit would have a big impact on trade, he says, “is why we put safety nets in place to protect us and the staff.
“Fortunately, we did not have to use these.”
Even so,he admits, “Every single business that used to trade UK to EU and vice versa has been affected.Determining how affected they were will depend on the percentage of the trade spilt.”
Many, of course, still hope the UK will return to the EU but he believes, “It will not be reversed. However, I do believed that the process will be simplified. The most effective way of doing this is to have trading agreement established between the UK and EU.But, even is an agreement was to be decided tomorrow, it would take over 2 years for it to come into effect.
“Furthermore the terms and conditions of the trade agreement would have play a big part in how much it will benefit what we are doing, so it is very hard to predict the outcome.”
