Following Brexit, confectioner Pecan Deluxe Candy found its UK operations hampered by costly new red tape around animal product exports. The solution? Go vegan.
The US-owned company – which supplies food brands with sweet confections like cake toppings and cookie dough – is ditching butter and eggs in favor of plant-based alternatives that don’t require checks at the EU border.
Bosses decided in October to put milk at the facility in the northern English village of Sherburn-in-Elmet near Leeds to boost exports to key markets in Europe.
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“We decided to take action because … we were not just going to lie down and take it,” Graham Kingston, managing director of Pecan Delux Candy Europe, told AFP.
Britain left the EU’s single market and customs union two years ago, forcing animal-based food exporters to submit veterinary certifications and other costly documents.
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The extra red tape has piled up costs and time on the company, further disrupting the supply chain.
However, vegan products are not subject to the same restrictions. That makes transportation cheaper and more efficient.
“One of the biggest issues we have is the implementation of border control checks,” Kingston said.
The inspection has “stopped many shipments depending on the interpretation of the rules, which has caused some problems with the products returned to us all having to be destroyed”.
– new recipe –
The extra red tape has cost the group more than £100,000 ($123,450) in the past few years.
“The new range … has brought those costs down,” he said.
“We don’t have to ask vets to come and sign in anymore and it allows us to have a really good supply chain to our customers in Europe.”
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Family-owned Pecan Delux Candy, which is based in Dallas, Texas and also has a factory in Thailand, employs 600 people worldwide who make key ingredients for desserts like brownies, cakes, cookies and more.
The company reformulated the recipe after European exports tanked to 55 percent of total UK sales.
That compares with a whopping 84 percent before Brexit.
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The new products are also cheaper to produce and follow current dietary trends.
“A few plant-based which have some other benefits to offer, which reduce the price, and also hit some trends that are in play at the moment, especially veganism,” Kingston told AFP.
Pecan Deluxe Candy Europe has made the French port of Calais a single point of EU entry.
– Reverse Brexit? –
Asked how a Brexit-backed UK government could help struggling exporters, Kingston suggested a Brexit reversal – and immediate help.
“I think going back to the EU would be a start, in terms of helping us,” Kingston told AFP.
“I only give assistance to the exporters if possible, but also the availability of information will help.
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“Because everyone here has learned after Brexit. So we have to be independent in the whole process.