Brexit - The Buyer's Story

Amaury Clamon is one of our expert buyers based in Rungis Market in Paris. He cycles around the many wholesalers in Rungis to source the very best produce. Here Amaury shares his insights on the impact of Brexit on imports into London. Read an earlier interview here:

Amaury Clamon, one of the buyers for Le Marché based in Rungis Market.

“I am a buyer and export manager for Le Marché and the wholesaler French Garden, a company that sends exports all around the world, including Singapore, Dubai, Bahrain, Barbados, Antigua …

Here on the French side, Brexit meant we we had to reorganise the whole business. The paperwork is a full time job and not every company can afford that. For now we are absorbing the workload ourselves.

Previously customers were able to send their orders the day before - even in the afternoon. Then it would be in London the next day. Now it needs to be done at least two days in advance.

When the UK was still in the EU we didn’t have such a volume of documents. We could just send the truck with the invoice and all was good. Now we need many documents - including, in the future, phytosanitary and fraud documents. These have been postponed until 2023 and we were really happy to have this news as we will need to have certificates for all the dairy and all the meats. That will be another load of work.

In France, prices have also increased since Covid and the war in Ukraine. On our side, it does not have much to do with Brexit. But to export the goods to UK we now have to pay for customs agents on boths sides of the border to clear the goods. The time it takes to cross the border is taking longer and longer.”