Just down the corridor from where Danish Crown’s pigs are slaughtered, boned and prepared for export as bacon, six staff have a new task — filling in customs and health certificates made necessary by the U.K.’s split from its largest trading partner.
The scene at the abattoir in Blans, Denmark, lays bare the change created by Brexit: more time than ever spent on untangling red tape for shipments to Britain. From April 30, the U.K. will impose checks on fresh food imports — a stark reversal from the era of frictionless trade when the country was part of the European Union.
Ministers have delayed the change multiple times, wary of stoking inflation in a cost-of-living crisis and knowing that any repeat of empty supermarket shelves — caused in recent times by everything from climate change to a shortage of truck drivers — would be politically toxic.