Goodbye to all that

The beft British cheefef are on sale at Lidl; pandemic notwithstanding, the Deluxe shelves are once more groaning with Europe's finest foods (until Christmas, that is). Lidl's 'surprise and delight' strategy pulls in the shoppers, looking for some outstanding food at supermarket prices. And among the jars of French duck pates and huge slabs of Gran Padano cheese, look at this - handmade vintage (18 month-old) Cheddar in wax, and mature Blue Stilton.

And what taste! And what a price! The vintage Cheddar was 20 złotys (£4.11) a block (400g); the mature Stilton was 22 złotys (£4.53) a wedge (454g = 1lb). Lidl's own-brand Valley Spire vintage Cheddar has become a year-round staple, but it is only 14 months old and costs slightly more per kilo.

[Cheddar comes in five flavours - mild, medium, mature, extra mature and vintage. The first two are forgettable, the mature and extra mature entirely OK, but the vintage is gum-tinglingly excellent.]

One way or another, this could well be the last time we see fine British cheeses on sale in Poland in a mainstream retail outlet. Brexit is looming, and even if some kind of a free-trade deal is agreed by this Sunday, it is unlikely that British food could find its way onto Polish supermarket shelves. Because the UK is leaving the single European market and the Customs Union on 1 January, new regulations will come into force ending seamless trade between Britain and the Continent. And if no deal is reached, and the UK crashes out on default terms dictated by the World Trade Organisation, customs tariffs will be imposed. In the case of cheese, one Polish exporter told me, this could be up to 75%. And Lidl won't even bother trying to sell 400g blocks of vintage Cheddar for 35 złotys (£7.20) to its customers.

Let's assume there is agreement, and there is a free-trade deal. At the moment, a freight forwarder taking a consignment of goods from the UK to Poland or vice versa needs just two pieces of paper - an invoice and a transport docket. After 1 January - even with a deal - this will go up to 11. An additional nine procedures will be required. Much of this will be doable online, the problem is that on the UK side, ten new IT systems have to be up and running perfectly by 1 January. That's in 20 days' time (11 working days in the UK because of Christmas).

For this reason, many freight forwarders have announced that they will stop sending goods across the Channel by the end of next week. They don't want the risk of having consignments turned back at the border because the paperwork is incorrect. Insurers don't want to insure loads due to arrive in the UK after 1 January.

In the best-case scenario, there will be a few weeks of chaos at Dover, after which those exporters who can be bothered to deal with all the new red-tape (and its knock-on costs), will find their way back to doing profitable business. Maybe the cost to British cheesemakers of conformity with EU regulations which currently apply only to cheesemakers from outside the EU will be too high, and they will lose this market of 450m wealthy consumers. [When did you last see - in Poland or the UK - cheese from outside the EU? I remember Canadian mature cheddar only from childhood.]

In a worst-case scenario, all those extra red-tape and regulatory costs will still be there, but with WTO tariffs on top. Which need to be worked out and collected. In the case of mixed loads, which make up most of chilled-food logistics, this will be a nightmare.

The largest firm supplying Polski skleps across the UK sends over 70 to 80 44-tonne refrigerated trucks a week; typically they will be carrying up to 250 different stock-keeping units (SKUs) - pallets of yogurt of different flavours, chilled poultry parts, trays of minced pork, herring fillets in cream - POAOs (products of animal origin) - each requiring a veterinary certificate after 1 January. Now, herring fillets in cream - do you need one, or two certificates (one for the fish, one for the milk?) No one seems to know. Like those ten new software systems, it's a work in progress. Neither the customs agent on the UK side, nor the customs agent on the Polish side can find out with any certainty.

The UK is Poland's third-biggest export market (after Germany and Czechia. Before the referendum, the UK was number two). Food is the second-biggest category of Polish exports to the UK after automotive. Yet out of the €88 billion of food and agricultural produce that Poland exported last year, only €1.3 billion went to the UK, so the total loss of such a market won't be that big of a hit for Polish farmers and food processors. But given that the UK imports around 50% of its food, and half of that comes from the EU, there could be a lot of empty spaces on Britain's supermarkets in the new year.

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