Brexit: Cheese wholesaler 'gives up on Ireland'

An English cheese wholesaler has "given up" on selling to the island of Ireland due to post-Brexit trade rules.

Rowcliffe, based in Kent, supplies delis and independent businesses.

It says the new processes make it unviable to send small quantities of perishable goods and has warned it will have to make redundancies as a result.

Goods going from Great Britain into the EU now face a new range of regulatory processes and checks, particularly on food products.

The same processes also apply to goods entering Northern Ireland as it has remained in the EU's single market for goods.

Rowcliffe's Managing Director, Sunit Mehta, was speaking to BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend.

He said that goods being sent to customers in Ireland previously went by courier and arrived within 48 hours.

The same orders would now take up to five days.

"The product going across is not going to last for five days," Mr Mehta said.

He said he did not see the issues being sorted out in the short term.

"We come to the same conclusion every single week - Ireland is not do-able currently."

That will mean the business losing about £1m of annual sales and Mr Mehta said "we will have to make certain people redundant."

A Belfast deli owner also told The World This Weekend he is now getting more of his products from the Republic of Ireland.

Kieran Sloan, managing director of Sawers, said it was companies he had dealt with for over 30 years were no longer supplying Northern Ireland.

"We have found other channels. We are bringing a lot of our stuff in from the Republic of Ireland.

"We can place an order on Monday and it will be here on Tuesday morning.

"There's nothing to fill in - not a form, nothing at all."