The Prime Minister goes to Brussels on 20 November to sign an agri-food deal he says will “ease pressure on supermarket prices”. The industry that supplies half of Britain’s fresh fruit and vegetables reads the small print very differently. The Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC) warns that the planned UK-EU reset would add more than £300 million a year to the cost of produce imported from outside the EU, and it warns that consumers will ultimately pay unless Andy Burnham wins a specific exemption for it.
The warning lands less than five weeks before the Prime Minister meets António Costa and Ursula von der Leyen at the second UK-EU summit in Brussels on 20 November. The meeting is meant to sign off new agreements on agri-food trade, emissions trading and youth mobility, deals Burnham told the Commons he would finish before opening a wider “calm, clear-eyed, rational look” at bringing Britain closer to the bloc.
That is the political prize on offer. The FPC’s concern is what the agri-food agreement, known as a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, does to a supply chain that has nothing to do with Brussels at all.
At Great British PAC, we believe Britain’s trade policy must serve British consumers, businesses and food producers first. If closer alignment with Brussels means higher costs for fresh produce imported from the rest of the world, ministers must explain how that benefits British families already struggling with food prices. A deal promoted as a way to reduce costs must not simply transfer those costs elsewhere.
Half of Britain’s fresh produce comes from beyond Europe
Roughly half of the fresh produce Britain imports arrives from outside the EU, according to the Consortium’s own analysis. That is around four million tonnes a year of citrus, mangoes, blueberries, sweet potatoes and peppers, produce grown in climates that British and European farms cannot match. By weight it is equivalent to about 50 billion adult portions of fruit and vegetables, the FPC calculates, the sort of volume that keeps supermarket shelves stocked from January to December when domestic growing stops.
Until now those imports have moved under a British risk-based border regime. The FPC says that system achieves 99.5% compliance across some 120,000 consignments a year, and it argues the science behind it has not changed. What has changed, it says, is the politics.
Under the planned SPS agreement, Britain would align dynamically with EU agri-food rules, following European standards as they shift and adopt new ones. The Government’s own guidance is explicit about the consequence for imports from the rest of the world. While routine checks on EU goods are set to disappear, Defra states that “the level of checks for most Rest of World goods is expected to align with those applied by the EU to Rest of World imports”, and that “the government anticipates an increase in check rates for certain Rest of World commodities”.
In plain terms, Britain would loosen its border for Europe and tighten it for everyone else. The FPC estimates the extra certification, inspections and official fees would together push annual costs above £300 million, with delays shortening the shelf life of perishable goods, raising waste and making UK trade less viable for smaller importers and overseas suppliers.
“Not optional”
Nigel Jenney, who has led the Consortium since 2004, has been direct about what is at stake.
“The rest of the world supply chain is not optional! It is fundamental to feeding the nation and mitigating food security risks. Yet we continue to see policies developing that will add hundreds of millions of pounds in unnecessary costs to global food imports at a time when affordability and resilience should be the priority.”
He is careful to say the industry is not asking anyone to lower standards, and he has been equally careful not to oppose the reset outright.
“We support a sensible reset, but not at any cost. We have repeatedly offered practical solutions that would deliver a balanced, resilient and effective food supply system. Unfortunately, the sector fears it will once again be ignored, with fresh produce businesses becoming the casualty of short-sighted policy decisions.”
The Consortium wrote to the Prime Minister on 23 July, copied to Environment Secretary Dame Angela Eagle, setting out the fix it wants. Its proposal is narrow. Keep the existing UK risk-based checks for rest-of-world fresh produce that is destined only for the British market. Treat any of that produce later exported to the EU as subject to full EU rules, which the existing customs border already manages. In effect, a long-term exemption from dynamic alignment for one category of goods, without touching the rest of the deal.
It is a proposal the Government has so far declined to take up. The FPC says it has yet to receive a substantive answer and wants formal engagement before arrangements are finalised.
Who carries the cost
The summit is being sold on growth and the cost of living. The Prime Minister’s own framing, announced on 12 October, is that the deals “will make us safer, cut back on paperwork that bogs down business and ease pressure on supermarket prices”. Biosecurity minister Baroness Hayman of Ullock has said the agreement “will make it easier for businesses to sell our world-class produce to European customers, support jobs, and help ease pressure on food prices for families”.
The trouble is that those benefits run to trade with the EU, while the costs identified by the FPC fall on trade with everybody else. The Government has not published an estimate of the net effect on consumer prices, and it is not obvious where the savings for non-EU produce would come from when the guidance points only to more checks. Asked to explain what the deal delivers for the produce that arrives from beyond Europe, ministers have yet to point to a figure.
The context makes the omission harder to justify. Food and non-alcoholic drink prices were still rising when the Government announced the summit, and the Food Foundation’s trackerrecords that the price of food climbed by 30.1% between April 2022 and July 2026. Around 40% of Britain’s food is imported, a share that leaves households exposed to border costs and supply shocks. A policy that adds £300 million to the price of imported fruit and vegetables sits uneasily with a promise to bring food bills down.
Accountability: who decided what
Precise attribution matters here, because this policy has a clear line of authorship.
The SPS agreement was set in motion by the previous Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, at the first UK-EU summit in London on 19 May 2025. It is now being carried to signature by his successor. Andy Burnham became Prime Minister on 20 July 2026 after the collapse of the Starmer administration, and it is his Government, with Dame Angela Eagle at Defra and Baroness Hayman responsible for biosecurity and plant health, that will decide whether the rest-of-world carve-out is sought. The same administration has reopened questions Starmer had set aside, with Burnham telling the Commons that longer-term options could include the single market, the customs union, or full EU membership.
Parliament has already flagged the constitutional weight of the direction of travel. In February 2026 the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee concluded that dynamic alignment “represents a significant constitutional development” needing clear parliamentary scrutiny, and recommended targeted exemptions from alignment in areas such as animal welfare and precision breeding, citing the precedent of Switzerland’s carve-out in its own deal with the EU. The committee’s chair, Alistair Carmichael MP, later said the Government’s response, which rejected a transition period after the agreement takes effect, had not put its best foot forward. If exemptions can be negotiated for welfare and breeding, the FPC’s argument runs, an exemption can be negotiated for rest-of-world produce.
The division is not confined to one party. Kemi Badenoch has pledged that a Conservative government would scrap any agri-food deal that requires Britain to adopt EU rules, and has warned Burnham that “he is not going to get a better deal” and that “the EU are tough negotiators”. Industry has pushed back on that pledge in turn, with food and drink bodies warning that tearing up the agreement would create fresh uncertainty and its own costs. Reform UK has campaigned against closer alignment, though it has not published a detailed position on the specific treatment of rest-of-world produce.
What would happen next
If the agreement proceeds as drafted, the practical effects on a British household are unglamorous but real: higher prices on the imported fruit and vegetables that fill the gaps in the domestic season, a thinner field of suppliers able to afford the paperwork, and less competition to hold prices down. None of that appears in a summit communiqué.
The FPC is asking for something modest by comparison with the stakes it describes: that ministers negotiate before they sign, and that they explain what the deal saves for the produce that travels to Britain from outside Europe. The Prime Minister has been willing to describe the reset in the language of family budgets. The test in Brussels is whether that language survives contact with the detail of his own Government’s guidance.
Great British PAC reaction
Britain’s trade policy should protect the national interest, food security and affordable access to fresh produce. A deal that eases trade with Europe must not be paid for by the supply chains that keep British shelves stocked through the winter, and the Government has yet to publish figures showing where the balance falls for produce sourced beyond the EU.
Steve Wright, Campaign Lead for Campaign Brexit at Great British PAC, said:
“The Fresh Produce Consortium have peaked behind the curtain of this Labour government, and found that the EU Reset policy will only serve to increase costs for producers and prices for consumers. We must prevent this from coming into effect and hurting each and every one of us.”
Mr Wright’s assessment is a political judgement about the direction of the reset, not a verified forecast of household food bills. The £300 million figure is the Fresh Produce Consortium’s industry estimate, and the Government’s published position remains that the agreement will cut paperwork and ease pressure on supermarket prices.
Great British PAC is asking four things of ministers:
- The Government must publish a transparent assessment of the proposed agreement’s impact on non-EU fresh produce imports.
- Ministers must explain whether they will negotiate the Fresh Produce Consortium’s proposed exemption.
- The Prime Minister must demonstrate how the agreement will reduce costs rather than shift them onto importers, retailers and consumers.
- The Government must engage directly with the industry before finalising the agreement.
Great British PAC is calling on the Government to publish a full assessment of the proposed agreement’s impact on non-EU fresh produce, negotiate safeguards for British importers and explain how the promised benefits will reach ordinary households.
Britain’s trade policy must work for British families and businesses, not leave them paying more for decisions made in Brussels.
