UK food into EU

[Brian Kirby]

As the previous string was frozen with several open questions I should like to give a few answers where possible.

First, several people were arguing somewhat with the regulation, in that they thought it an irritating nuisance, but also that it is not, apparently being enforced at present (at least as fare as France is concerned).  On the first point I agree, but we are where we are, and where we are is where we voted to be, so as far as I'm concerned I think we just have to grin and bear it, or take our chances if we choose to segue around it.

One questioner asked if anyone had been required to dump the "contraband" foodstuffs by French Customs.  The answer appears to be yes, but the details were unclear and the instanced few.

It must be remembered that the actual regulation falls into a category classified as "Delegated", which implies that it is not absolute, but to some unspecified extent to be interpreted by the various states, on what is described as a risk based controls.  The Regulation states:

"2.The controls referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall:

(a) aim in particular at detecting the presence of goods referred to in Article 7;

(b) aim at verifying that the conditions laid down in Article 7 are met; and

(c) be carried out by appropriate means, which may include the use of scanning equipment or specifically trained detector dogs, to screen large volumes of goods.

3.The competent authorities, the customs authorities or other public authorities responsible, which carry out specific official controls shall:

(a) aim at identifying the goods which are non-compliant with the rules laid down in Article 7;

(b) ensure that the non-compliant goods identified are seized and destroyed in accordance with national legislation and, where applicable, in accordance with Articles 197 to 199 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (13);

(c) review, at least once per year and before 1 October, their applied mechanisms and actions, establish the level of compliance achieved, and, on a risk-basis, adapt those mechanisms and actions if necessary, to achieve the objectives laid down in points (a) and (b) of paragraph 2."

This (especially 3. (c) above) seems to me to imply that the effectiveness of the controls is to be monitored and, if evidence of cross contamination of animals or plants arises, modified to prevent further examples of similar contamination.

There is no reference that I can find to any need to serve notice on third countries of an intention to tighten the controls, so I would expect this to be imposed by coordinating the measures applied by the EU states most at risk of admitting the contamination.  If we suffer foot and mouth or other highly transmissible animal or plant diseases (fowl pest, swine vesicular disease etc.) I would expect the controls to be upped immediately, with ensuing detailed inspections and long queues developing at borders.  This is nowhere stated, but seems to me likely.

We already have a number of pernicious plant pathogens circulating in UK, but none (so far as I know!) at present in edible plants.  We are, in common with the EU, suffering from avian flu - so I assume that risk is presently viewed as neutral.

The origin of all this regulation was a particularly destructive outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 1967, before we joined the EEC, but there have been others since and several of these have spread to the EU, resulting in various control directives commencing in 1980.  I don't think Brexit makes any difference to this, we've had export bans on animal exports several times while we were members of the EU due to similar factors.

One other issue arose, which was the proximity of supermarkets to Channel ports.  I've investigated this between Calais and St Malo with the following outcomes.

Calais:  Match, Intermarché, Carrefour Market, Carrefour Hyper and Auchan all within 15 minutes drivetime from port (Auchan 10 minutes from Chunnel).

Dieppe:  Auchan, Intermarché, Leclerc within 5 minutes of port.

Le Havre: 2 x Auchan + Leclerc within 15 minutes from port.

Ouistreham: Auchan and Carrefour Market within 10 minutes from port.

Cherbourg: 2 x Intermarché +Carrefour, Leclerc and Auchan within 15 minutes from port.

St Malo: Leclerc, Intermarché and Carrefour within 10 minutes + Cora 15 minutes.

All the above are on commercial centres with good motorhome accessible parking - though some may have height barriers.

[Globebuster1]

Thank you Brian, for your perseverance and additional information.

Without dragging up the previous thread, I was very offended by John 52's reply to one of my posts which implied I was ungrateful regarding your input, and that of Derek's

'It's not helpful to throw it back in their faces, by effectively saying they needn't have bothered because you [that's me of course] prefer French food'

I hope neither of you were in any way offended, and for clarity I'll add that at no point did I mention a preference for French food!

[Thai Bry]

12 hours ago, Brian Kirby said:

As the previous string was frozen with several open questions I should like to give a few answers where possible.

First, several people were arguing somewhat with the regulation, in that they thought it an irritating nuisance, but also that it is not, apparently being enforced at present (at least as fare as France is concerned).  On the first point I agree, but we are where we are, and where we are is where we voted to be, so as far as I'm concerned I think we just have to grin and bear it, or take our chances if we choose to segue around it.

One questioner asked if anyone had been required to dump the "contraband" foodstuffs by French Customs.  The answer appears to be yes, but the details were unclear and the instanced few.

It must be remembered that the actual regulation falls into a category classified as "Delegated", which implies that it is not absolute, but to some unspecified extent to be interpreted by the various states, on what is described as a risk based controls.  The Regulation states:

"2.The controls referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article shall:

(a) aim in particular at detecting the presence of goods referred to in Article 7;

(b) aim at verifying that the conditions laid down in Article 7 are met; and

(c) be carried out by appropriate means, which may include the use of scanning equipment or specifically trained detector dogs, to screen large volumes of goods.

3.The competent authorities, the customs authorities or other public authorities responsible, which carry out specific official controls shall:

(a) aim at identifying the goods which are non-compliant with the rules laid down in Article 7;

(b) ensure that the non-compliant goods identified are seized and destroyed in accordance with national legislation and, where applicable, in accordance with Articles 197 to 199 of Regulation (EU) No 952/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (13);

(c) review, at least once per year and before 1 October, their applied mechanisms and actions, establish the level of compliance achieved, and, on a risk-basis, adapt those mechanisms and actions if necessary, to achieve the objectives laid down in points (a) and (b) of paragraph 2."

This (especially 3. (c) above) seems to me to imply that the effectiveness of the controls is to be monitored and, if evidence of cross contamination of animals or plants arises, modified to prevent further examples of similar contamination.

There is no reference that I can find to any need to serve notice on third countries of an intention to tighten the controls, so I would expect this to be imposed by coordinating the measures applied by the EU states most at risk of admitting the contamination.  If we suffer foot and mouth or other highly transmissible animal or plant diseases (fowl pest, swine vesicular disease etc.) I would expect the controls to be upped immediately, with ensuing detailed inspections and long queues developing at borders.  This is nowhere stated, but seems to me likely.

We already have a number of pernicious plant pathogens circulating in UK, but none (so far as I know!) at present in edible plants.  We are, in common with the EU, suffering from avian flu - so I assume that risk is presently viewed as neutral.

The origin of all this regulation was a particularly destructive outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 1967, before we joined the EEC, but there have been others since and several of these have spread to the EU, resulting in various control directives commencing in 1980.  I don't think Brexit makes any difference to this, we've had export bans on animal exports several times while we were members of the EU due to similar factors.

One other issue arose, which was the proximity of supermarkets to Channel ports.  I've investigated this between Calais and St Malo with the following outcomes.

Calais:  Match, Intermarché, Carrefour Market, Carrefour Hyper and Auchan all within 15 minutes drivetime from port (Auchan 10 minutes from Chunnel).

Dieppe:  Auchan, Intermarché, Leclerc within 5 minutes of port.

Le Havre: 2 x Auchan + Leclerc within 15 minutes from port.

Ouistreham: Auchan and Carrefour Market within 10 minutes from port.

Cherbourg: 2 x Intermarché +Carrefour, Leclerc and Auchan within 15 minutes from port.

St Malo: Leclerc, Intermarché and Carrefour within 10 minutes + Cora 15 minutes.

All the above are on commercial centres with good motorhome accessible parking - though some may have height barriers.

Many thanks once again Brian K

I found this information of interest, and also the mention of supermarkets near to the "Chunnel", particularly, as we have not used the chunnel crossing ever before, normally sail the Hull to Rotterdam route.

So once again I thank you for this information.

[mtravel]

I wonder if you brave and hurried Brits would show up at the border of an Islamic country with a refrigerator full of bacon.

[malc d]

12 minutes ago, mtravel said:

I wonder if you brave and hurried Brits would show up at the border of an Islamic country with a refrigerator full of bacon.

It's no longer possible because we can't get it across the channel.   🙂

[derek500]

We came on the afternoon crossing to Ouistreham on Saturday.  We arrived at 9.30pm.  No shops were open at 10pm when we were out of the port.

I could have Googled to find out what supermarkets near Hermanville-sur-Mer, where we overnighted, were open on Sunday morning and sold fresh milk not UHT, or we could use the milk we brought from the UK.  We did the latter. 

Thankfully, we weren't searched in the UK or France!   

I expect the 99% of motorhomers who don't read forums do the same.

[Brian Kirby]

1 hour ago, mtravel said:

I wonder if you brave and hurried Brits would show up at the border of an Islamic country with a refrigerator full of bacon.

Not quite in the same league, I think, Max!  😄 

[Brian Kirby]

15 hours ago, Globebuster1 said:

Thank you Brian, for your perseverance and additional information.

Without dragging up the previous thread, I was very offended by John 52's reply to one of my posts which implied I was ungrateful regarding your input, and that of Derek's

'It's not helpful to throw it back in their faces, by effectively saying they needn't have bothered because you [that's me of course] prefer French food'

I hope neither of you were in any way offended, and for clarity I'll add that at no point did I mention a preference for French food!

No, not offended in the least.  I'm (reasonably 🙂) used to John's "direct" posting style!  'Though I hesitate to speak on his behalf, I'm pretty sure Derek is as as well.  Besides which, he has his own inimitable ways of signalling displeasure if it is aroused!  😄

[Robinhood]

 

"I wonder if you brave and hurried Brits would show up at the border of an Islamic country with a refrigerator full of bacon."

...but again, couldn't you just buy it at the first supermarket when you got there....?

 

😉

[Brian Kirby]

2 hours ago, derek500 said:

We came on the afternoon crossing to Ouistreham on Saturday.  We arrived at 9.30pm.  No shops were open at 10pm when we were out of the port.

I could have Googled to find out what supermarkets near Hermanville-sur-Mer, where we overnighted, were open on Sunday morning and sold fresh milk not UHT, or we could use the milk we brought from the UK.  We did the latter. 

Thankfully, we weren't searched in the UK or France!   

I expect the 99% of motorhomers who don't read forums do the same.

 

 

For future reference, if you took the D514 from Ouistreham to Hermanville, you will have passed the Auchan at Colleville - GPS N49.28975 W0.28375, (Open 08:30 - 20:00 Mon-Sat and Sun 09:00 to 12:30), or if you had continued on up the D84 from the port, to GPS N49.26844 W0.25801, you would have found the Carrefour Market Ouistreham (Open Mon - Sat 08:30 - 20:00, and Sun 09:00 - 12:45).  Since you arrived too late Saturday, Sunday would have been your only option: which super depending on your preferences and driving plans.  At this time of year the BF timetable on Portsmouth Caen doesn't exactly favour shopping on arrival - unless you fancy an overnight.  We usually settle for UHT in France as a) its better for some reason than UK UHT and b) we've only a small fridge but can keep our reserve milk elsewhere if UHT.

My uncorroborated conclusion on being stopped is: a) they will be obliged to stop some to prove controls are operated, but b), this is likely to remain the lightest possible touch control until UK products become identifiably dodgy due to some outbreak of a contagious plant or animal pathogen in UK.  I think the UK is obliged to notify WOAH or IPPC of any such outbreaks, so I imagine any such notification would result in rapid implementation of 100% border controls.  Be interesting to know if anyone has information on this.

[mtravel]

If breakfast is the problem, you can use that abhorrent dry leaf drink you call tea.

Instead of milk, like all civilized peoples, use lemon.

Oh yeah, hard to find on your dank island, use freeze-dried juice.

Or come to Italy, Carrefour supermarkets are open around the clock.

[malc d]

51 minutes ago, mtravel said:

If breakfast is the problem, you can use that abhorrent dry leaf drink you call tea.

Instead of milk, like all civilized peoples, use lemon.

Oh yeah, hard to find on your dank island, use freeze-dried juice.

Or come to Italy, Carrefour supermarkets are open around the clock.

That's useful - if your supermarkets are open all night.

Can you give us the name of a vehicle ferry that goes direct from U.K. to Italy ?

🙂

[mtravel]

11 minutes ago, malc d said:

That's useful - if your supermarkets are open all night.

Can you give us the name of a vehicle ferry that goes direct from U.K. to Italy ?

🙂

I said that the Carrefours are open 24 hours, luckily not all of them.

As for the ferry, you can always hijack one.

However, a few hours of dieting wouldn't hurt...

[laimeduck]

5 hours ago, malc d said:

That's useful - if your supermarkets are open all night.

Can you give us the name of a vehicle ferry that goes direct from U.K. to Italy ?

🙂

Malc d ..I've been searching for hours but Direct Ferries say this on their site.  Which means we've all got to go to a supermarket after we get off our ferry/ train and forgo our disgusting British produce! Tee hee!

Jeremy

[mtravel]

16 hours ago, laimeduck said:

... Which means we've all got to go to a supermarket after we get off our ferry/ train and forgo our disgusting British produce! Tee hee!

Jeremy

 

Disgusting: Don't be so negative.

Just googling something like "top european food" you can get an idea.

A couple of rankings: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/all-48-european-countries-ranked-by-food-drink-107903176536.html?guccounter=1

or

https://www.farandwide.com/s/european-food-ranked-685b673108274799 Don't waste your time, go straight to the bottom, it's a "top-down" ranking.

England are somewhere in no man's land.

Smile,

Max