TIMCON MADE its request in a letter to DEFRA, following its submission to the consultation process on the proposed agreement between the UK and EU – which aims to reduce the number of border checks, certification requirements, and admin that currently apply. The organisation highlighted the significant costs incurred by the industry since Brexit to comply with ISPM15 requirements controlling the movement of wooden pallets and packaging between the UK and EU.

TIMCON said its members have invested heavily to be able to meet ISPM15 requirements since leaving the EU to maintain the flow of trade, and have also faced ongoing compliance, energy, transport and fuel costs.

TIMCON secretary general Stuart Hex said: “While many of these costs were inevitably passed on to customers, our industry has also had to bear these costs year after year as operational necessities since the UK became a third country.”

He added that TIMCON supports a shared UK/EU system on food safety, animal health and plant health rules, with special dispensation, exemption, or complete removal of ISPM15 requirements for pallets and timber packaging moving between the two areas. This “would reduce business costs and cut red tape for our members and the wider timber packaging manufacturing, logistics, and transportation industry,” he said, and “reduce the cost to customers and end users of pallets from all sectors (not just agri-food) shipping their products into the EU; speeding up the flow of these UK goods and making them more competitive.”