UK meals security in ‘absolute chaos’ because of Brexit, knowledgeable warns

Food safety is in ‘absolute chaos’ in Britain, an expert has warned.

Brexit, the rise of online grocery sales, climate change and the war in Ukraine have combined to create the scenario now facing consumers, according to Chris Elliott, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security.

He told the Chartered Trading Standard Institute: ‘The UK imports nearly 50 per cent of all food we eat, so everything that happens in other parts of the world impacts us.

‘One Spanish company has decided not to import into the UK anymore because it’s not a big enough market for it with all the paperwork that’s needed.’

Against the backdrop of Britain no longer being in the EU, he said rogue foreign firms ‘realise it’s easier to get food that is not of the same quality and standards into the UK as we don’t have the same checks and measures’.

Brexit, the war in Ukraine and climate change have combined to put UK food security in ‘absolute chaos’, an expert has warned (file photo)

Chris Elliott, the founder of the Institute for Global Food Security, said there was a higher risk of rogue foreign companies to export food of lower quality and standard into the UK (file photo)

‘There are lots of reports about dodgy meat turning up in Felixstowe, for example, and that’s just one of the consequences of becoming isolated,’ added the author of a 2013 report on the horsemeat scandal.

Professor Elliott – awarded an OBE seven years ago for services to the agri-food supply chain – also pointed to the overuse of pesticides in the UK and warned of a surge in online food fraud. He said: ‘It’s like the Wild West.’

His warning comes after one person died and more than 120 people were admitted to hospital after an E.coli outbreak linked to contaminated lettuce.