While many famers initially supported Brexit, other parts of the food sector were distinctly sceptical or actively opposed. Ahead of the ten-year anniversary of the referendum Erik Millstone describes how Brexit harmed imports, exports, food prices and jobs. The “reset” deal with the EU may make things easier. But if British food standards are slipping, don’t blame Brexit.

During debates about the anticipated impacts of Brexit on the United Kingdom’s food system, it was clear that many farmers favoured Brexit, despite the advice of the National Farmers’ Union. They assumed that a UK-focussed agricultural policy regime would be more favourable than the EU’s common agricultural policy as implemented by the British government. Food processors and retailers on the other hand saw Brexit as a serious threat to supplies and prices. But farmers supported Brexit enthusiastically and publicly, while representatives of the processors and retailers participated hesitantly in public debates, unwilling to alienate any customers. Nonetheless, by 2021 senior food industry executives warned that Brexit would have bigger adverse on food and drink in the UK than the recent COVID-19 pandemic had done.

Once Brexit had occurred, in January 2020, food businesses joined the chorus warning the government that the continuing post-Brexit disruptions in supply chains posed acute and abiding inflationary threats. It is difficult precisely to quantify the impact of Brexit on food price inflation, because the period since January 2020 has also seen concurrent disrupters, such as the pandemic and the energy and fertiliser shock after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But in May 2026 researchers at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit estimated that by November 2026 retail food prices in the country will have risen by 50 per cent in the five years since 2021. The preceding 50 per cent rise had taken around 20 years to occur. 

The consequences of those increased costs have affected all parts of the food system. But they have not been evenly distributed, with poor households hit especially hard.

Brexit regrets and chlorinated chicken

Although many British farmers voted for Brexit, many now consider themselves to have been hard done by or even “betrayed”.  After Brexit, Boris Johnson’s Conservative government’s agricultural policy took a different approach from the EU by introducing new (and untested) policy instruments. They ended the familiar “Basic Payments Scheme” that had provided financial support to farms in proportion to the size of their land and would instead reward farmers for the provision of “public goods”. But those public goods were interpreted very narrowly as only including improved soil, cleaner air and water, and increased biodiversity of native flora and fauna. Bizarrely, the government refuses to count producing food as a public good. Moreover, the environmental schemes that were introduced were under-funded and incompetently administered. Many farmers were left with little or no public support, so their ability to withstand unanticipated shocks was diminished, as were their incentives to invest.

Before Brexit, both farmers and consumers feared that free-trade deals between the UK and non-EU countries with lower standards which would diminish the competitiveness of British producers and introduce less safe products, such as the infamous “chlorine-washed chicken”. President Barack Obama had said that Britain would be at the back of the queue for free-trade deals with America, but Donald Trump sometimes sounded more enthusiastic. In the event, British government ministers recognise that such agreements were, and still are, opposed by domestic farmers, food processors, retailers and consumers. Although the current Trump administration continues to press the UK, and the EU, to accept American meat and dairy products – even though they fail to meet our regulatory standards.

Britain did conclude a trade agreement with Australia in June 2021 and one with New Zealand in February 2022. In both cases official assurances were given that imports will comply with the country’s prevailing food safety and animal welfare requirements. Those agreements came into force at the end of May 2023. Talks with India began in early 2022 with a deal finally agreed in July 2025 although the provisions concerning food just consisted of some marginal bilateral import tax reductions. (In May 2026 the implementation of the deal was suspended for reasons related to steel, not food.)

What of a food trade deal between the UK and the EU?

Because regulatory compliance is more expensive, and slower, than it was before Brexit, British producers of both fresh foodstuffs and processed products have had reduced access to the EU’s market. That has resulted in diminished quantities sold at higher prices. Producers have therefore sought to export their products to non-EU markets, while at the same time the country has increasingly relied on imports from further afield. In March 2025 the Food & Drink Federation reported that UK exports to the EU had fallen by 34 per cent since Brexit in 2020.

But on 19 May 2025 an important shift emerged when a “Brexit reset” deal between the UK and EU was announced. A key part of this agreement concerns a food and veterinary agreement which will allow for full dynamic alignment of the UK’s food safety rules, regulations and standards with those of the EU. Implementation should remove barriers to trade in food and drink between the UK and the EU. The Food & Drink Federation predicted that, when implemented, agrifood exports to the EU could increase by more than 20 per cent, which would be noticeably short of the previous 34% loss.

A beneficial consequence of the agreement is that it will resolve the post-Brexit problems that arose because of Northern Ireland’s open border with the Irish Republic.  Currently, there is in effect a trade border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and the island of Ireland, as some products lawfully traded in Great Britain cannot be exported to Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the UK, because they cannot lawfully be sold in the Irish Republic, which is a member of the EU. Alignment of food standards will dissolve that problem.

Another effect of Brexit was the end to the freedom of movement of EU citizens in Britain. For the food industry this meant loss of access to EU citizens to work in eg hospitality and as temporary seasonal work such as harvesting. In August 2021 trade organisations warned the government that the food sector was “battling a unique set of challenges that have coalesced to create fundamental labour shortages…placing huge pressure on the sector” and that these could “quickly reach breaking point.” The statement claimed that these shortages covered the full breadth of the supply chain from the initial inputs into farming to those that serve food and drink “at the table”. A breaking point did not occur. But undoubtedly post-Brexit restrictions on the mobility of non-UK nationals have raised costs the producers, processors, retailers and the catering trade, which have been reflected in higher prices for consumers.

New rules for imports and exports

After Brexit the EU did not immediately impose all the border checks of documents and consignments needed to ensure full regulatory compliance. Instead, it delayed a year, implementing full checks only in 2021. The British authorities were even slower to get their acts and procedures together. It was only in January 2024 that Britain started to implement corresponding inspections and controls. The new regime required health certificates on EU goods such as meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, and even cut flowers. Full compliance will have some costs, but they may be marginal.  The introduction of that regime had been delayed five times. Moreover ministers decided that physical checks would not take place at the port of entry, but at in-land depots to which vehicles would be directed, such as Sevington in Kent. In September 2025 the government acknowledged that not all the vehicles directed to report to Sevington had arrived, although it claims compliance is improving and were the responsibility of (already hugely stretched) local authorities.

Many consumers are having difficulties coping with retail food price inflation. But many are also concerned about the safety of their food. After Brexit, a very substantial majority of UK regulatory food standards have remained as they were pre-Brexit. If food safety standards in Britain have deteriorated that has been caused by domestic policies. Budget pressures on local authorities mean the officers who check for hygiene, labelling, and weights and measures have declined, while at the same time the number of catering establishments, including for delivery, has been sharply increasing. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “the uninspected deteriorates”.

This article gives the views of the author, not the position of LSE Business Review or the London School of Economics. You are agreeing with our comment policy when you leave a comment. 

 Image credit: Lois GoBe provided by Shutterstock.