{"id":546516,"date":"2026-04-23T14:11:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546516\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:11:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T14:11:25","slug":"dont-count-on-the-brexit-reset-to-slash-uk-food-prices-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/546516\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t count on the Brexit reset to slash UK food prices \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By pursuing an agreement, the government appears ready to adopt \u201cunnecessarily stringent\u201d EU SPS controls on imports from non-EU countries, said Jenney.<\/p>\n<p>This risks triggering \u201cthousands of additional and unnecessary border delays, considerably more inspections, more paperwork and port congestion \u2014 every added layer acting as a compounding financial penalty on trade,\u201d he warned.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Analysis conducted by the Fresh Produce Consortium \u2014 seen by POLITICO \u2014 suggests that a number of staples from the weekly shop could be negatively impacted as border checks for non-EU produce are ramped up \u2014 from Moroccan cucumbers and Indian mangoes to South African citrus fruits and U.S. sweet potatoes. This is expected to add a cost of around \u00a3400 million to the supply chain, the consortium estimates.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2268121385-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8318534\"  \/>U.K. Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds leaves No. 10 Downing Street after a Cabinet meeting on March 24, 2026. | Leon Neal\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Beyond imports, firms have warned that the SPS deal risks imposing costly burdens on domestic growers, who are forced to impose EU standards even if they have no plan to export to the bloc.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On March 9, the government set out the <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/214471\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">proposed scope<\/a> of the SPS deal, covering areas such as food safety, packaging, labeling and pesticides. Announcing the plans, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said they would make \u201ctrade easier and cheaper, and deliver tangible benefits for British businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>CropLife, which represents the plant science industry, fears it could have the opposite effect. In a recent report, the trade association warned that alignment with the EU\u2019s regulatory regime for agricultural pesticides alone could <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/212180\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">wipe \u00a3810 million off British farmers\u2019 profits<\/a> in year one, with knock-on effects for food prices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By pursuing an agreement, the government appears ready to adopt \u201cunnecessarily stringent\u201d EU SPS controls on imports from&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[816,84,11566,1294,1344,3682,1397,114950,2362,31118,133176,2693,555,1431,585,2274,420,106515,4015,9850,2365,82364,2695,469,2023,1351,8736,426,2366,56,157,54,158,55,636,163220],"class_list":{"0":"post-546516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-borders","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-dairy","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-energy-prices","14":"tag-environment","15":"tag-fertilizers","16":"tag-food-safety","17":"tag-food-security","18":"tag-fruit-and-vegetables","19":"tag-imports","20":"tag-industry","21":"tag-inflation","22":"tag-iran","23":"tag-ireland","24":"tag-keir-starmer","25":"tag-labeling","26":"tag-meat","27":"tag-packaging","28":"tag-pesticides","29":"tag-plant-health","30":"tag-ports","31":"tag-produce","32":"tag-retail","33":"tag-security","34":"tag-supply-chains","35":"tag-trade","36":"tag-trade-agreements","37":"tag-uk","38":"tag-ukraine","39":"tag-united-kingdom","40":"tag-united-states","41":"tag-unitedkingdom","42":"tag-war","43":"tag-war-in-iran"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}