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The British Retail Consortium (BRC) has called on the government to provide clarity for UK supermarkets on labelling issues caused by the Windsor Framework ahead of the October deadline.
Labelling is a key issue as it will determine whether or not businesses can trade in the green lane or red lane.
The green lane will be for British goods remaining in Northern Ireland and labelled “not for EU” and the red lane will be where goods can travel into the Republic of Ireland and the EU.
Andrew Opie, food and sustainability director at the BRC, told a House of Lords committee that he expects the first guidance on labelling to be published in the next 10 days.
Red lane items will be subject to border checks whereas green lane items will not be.
Labelling changes can take months so the BRC is looking for clarity urgently as some supermarkets are already considering what is feasible to send to Northern Ireland in October.
Opie said: “Labelling is one of the requirements of using the green lane, so if we don’t know how to label the products then we shouldn’t be using the green lane and would be subject to all the checks
“You couldn’t run a commercial supermarket by running all of their trade through the red lane, it just wouldn’t work, the numbers wouldn’t stack up.”
Glyn Roberts from Retail NI has echoed this sentiment saying that “so much more clarity is needed” for his members.
