In a recent meeting with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, Ian Wright, chief executive of the Food and Drink Federation, along with Ian Rayson of Nestle UK, raised various concerns over Brexit.
According to a report by BBC, Wright said that warehouses around the UK, which store frozen and chilled food are “for all practical purposes booked out at the moment”. He also suggested that space for other goods is available, but in the wrong places.
Wright is further reported as saying that he was in favour of the Draft Withdrawal Agreement from the EU negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May, because it was preferable to leaving the European Union without a deal.
He made these comments when appearing before the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee together with Dan Mobley, corporate relations director of spirits producer Diageo, and Ian Rayson, director of corporate communications at food and drink company Nestle.
Mobley said that his company would wait to see how the UK was going to leave the EU before making decisions on stock. He added that his company’s main worry around Brexit was the labour market and not the supply chain.
Ian Rayson confirmed his company was buying supplies in advance: “We are stock building some products to bring into the UK and also stock building in Europe for the products that we would send out there.”
Rayson added: “You can prepare almost in crisis management terms for a no-deal exit and you can do certain things around that, but you cannot mitigate the risks of no-deal Brexit. The consequences of it would be very severe and should be avoided, and that’s the honest truth.”
