Tavish Scott, Executive Director of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organization (SSPO), recently expressed that there is an urgent need to redesign the Export Health Certificate (EHC). This is due to the fact that Scottish salmon producers have had to face significant delays since the Brexit transition period ended on January 1, and all the effects of Brexit took effect.
Despite improvements since January, when it took many hours, and sometimes days, to process seafood orders for the old continent, shipments are still delayed due to the bureaucracy of additional paperwork.
Now, it takes approximately two hours to process each load of seafood and receive an export health certificate for transport to the European Union (EU), and in some cases this process takes four hours or more. These delays mean that the salmon does not arrive in France on time, leading to lost orders, discounted sales and unhappy customers.
Scott has called on the UK Government to look into this matter urgently and has personally raised it with senior authorities.
The executive said that “seafood exports are fundamentally important to the economies of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Salmon is the UK’s main food export. For this reason, we need the Government to reduce the costs and complexity that our sector faces ”. He specified that they have received lights of hope in the sense of the will of the authorities to review the required procedures.
One of the biggest problems is that certifying officers have to cross off numerous boxes, scoring all products that the supplier is not exporting to the EU. This often leads to confusion and errors, causing delays both in the UK and at EU border posts.
The representative of the salmon farmers added that “I welcome the commitment made by the UK government to initiate a review of the export health certificate system. They were never designed for perishable products like salmon and, therefore, they should never have been the document that we are forced to use as exporters ”. He added that “progress on this is vitally important to our salmon sector and the fishing industry.”
According to figures compiled by the SSPO, Scottish salmon farmers are spending £ 200,000 a month on additional paperwork due to Brexit. This £ 2.5 million annual bill will add to the delays, cancellations and problems that have already cost the industry millions of pounds in lost orders, lower prices and canceled harvests.
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