...AND PLAN TO STOCKPILE FOOD IS ‘MADCAP FROM START TO FINISH’

PLANS to stockpile food to prepare for a hard Brexit have been branded ‘madcap’ by food industry figures who say it could never work.

Brexit secretary Dominic Raab said last week the Government would ensure there was ‘adequate food’ and implied industry would be responsible for ‘stockpiling’ so Britain did not run out.

Lord Price, a former international trade minister and previously boss of Waitrose, said: ‘You can’t stockpile fruit or meat. You can’t stockpile many dairy products. It’s impossible and it’s not a credible option for an entire nation to do that.

‘What’s important, when we leave, is that we do it in a way that allows people to maintain their jobs and maintain their standards of living... I would have thought it’s better to extend the deadline if we find ourselves without a deal in six or seven months’ time.’

Richard Burnett at the Road Haulage Association said: ‘The whole idea is madcap from start to finish.’

A supermarket source said: ‘The idea there are giant warehouses just sitting around waiting to be filled is naive. The scale we are talking about would require parts of the country to be turned into vast storage facilities. I’m not just saying it would be difficult and cost a lot of money. I’m saying they need to go back and think again.’

Sources said crashing out of the EU could quickly lead to shortages. Panic buying before March 29 could mean tinned products run out first. But depleting stocks of fresh food such as oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli and meat such as pork and beef would soon reach crisis point.

‘The food supply chain is highly complex and finely tuned. If you throw a spanner in the works like this, things spiral pretty quickly,’ the supermarket source said.