Brexit stockpiling bears little fruit for wholesaler

LONDON, Dec 8, (AFP): Fresh fruit and vegetable entrepreneur Franco Fubini knows all about the importance of goods arriving on time, as Brexit threatens to delay delivery of produce into and out of Britain.

Preparing for possible transit chaos at the border following Britain’s formal departure from the European Union on March 29, UK companies from supermarkets to carmakers are preparing to stockpile.

However for Fubini’s company Natoora – a wholesaler, retailer and food producer – stockpiling fresh fruits and vegetables is not an option.

“For us, the freshness of the product is essential,” CEO Fubini told AFP, speaking from company headquarters and warehousing facilities housed in a viaduct on a site once occupied by London’s first railway terminus in Bermondsey.

Whether his imported avocados, peaches and tomatoes will continue to arrive at the capital’s finest eateries on time is far from certain as lawmakers prepare for next week’s crucial UK parliamentary vote on the Brexit divorce deal.

“There is a huge amount of product that doesn’t grow in the UK, primarily a lot of the fruit,” said the Argentinian-Italian, who founded the high-end and seasonallydriven business 14 years ago.

Natoora supplies more than 1,000 mostly top-end restaurants in a business spanning London, New York and Paris, with fresh produce sourced from farms in the UK, Italy, France, Spain and the US.

“The consumption that happens at restaurants and the consumption in our retail stores, particularly eating out, is very sensitive to immediate consumer concerns” surrounding Brexit, Fubini, 44, told AFP.

As boxes filled with imported lemons and limes and Christmas-season favourite Brussels sprouts were loaded onto lorries, Fubini also said that Natoora job applicants were down sharply over the past year amid Brexit uncertainty, especially among Eastern Europeans.