{"id":31835,"date":"2025-06-27T12:21:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ms-boss-says-extending-northern-ireland-food-labelling-is-madness\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T12:21:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:21:39","slug":"ms-boss-says-extending-northern-ireland-food-labelling-is-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/ms-boss-says-extending-northern-ireland-food-labelling-is-madness\/","title":{"rendered":"M&S boss says extending Northern Ireland food labelling is madness"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The decision to extend post-Brexit food labelling on products being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland has been criticised by the chief executive of Marks & Spencer.<\/p>\n

The “Not for EU” labels have been phased in since 2023<\/a> with the final phase to be implemented next week.<\/p>\n

The labels are likely to become unnecessary when the UK and EU finalise a new agrifood deal.<\/p>\n

Stuart Machin said it was “bureaucratic madness” and the new deal “can’t come soon enough”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The labelling is a requirement of the Windsor Framework<\/a>, the revised Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

It is part of a broader package of changes to the 2019 Brexit deal for Northern Ireland – known as the NI Protocol.<\/p>\n

The protocol kept Northern Ireland inside the EU single market for goods, which allowed a free flow of goods across the Irish border.<\/p>\n

However it made trading from Great Britain to Northern Ireland more difficult and expensive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Checks and controls on GB food products entering Northern Ireland have been some of the biggest practical difficulties.<\/p>\n

Under the Windsor Framework, UK public health and safety standards apply for all retail food and drink in the UK internal market.<\/p>\n

That means GB traders who are sending food for sale in Northern Ireland face reduced checks and paperwork compared to the protocol.<\/p>\n

The flipside of this is the introduction of the “Not for EU” labels on GB food products, to give a level of assurance to the EU that products will not wrongly enter its single market.<\/p>\n

Mr Machin said the final phase of labelling would mean more than 1,000 Marks & Spencer products destined for Northern Ireland would need to have a “Not For EU” label.<\/p>\n

Another 400 would need to go through additional checks in the so-called red lane at NI ports.<\/p>\n

“Quite frankly it’s bureaucratic madness, confusing for customers, and completely unnecessary,” Mr Machin said.<\/p>\n

In May the government announced an “agreement to agree” which will ultimately see all of the UK realigning with EU agrifood rules.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision to extend post-Brexit food labelling on products being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland has been criticised by the chief executive of Marks & Spencer. The “Not for EU” labels have been phased in since 2023 with the final phase to be implemented next week. The labels are likely to become unnecessary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[469,10717,516,1064,8058,7352,1175],"class_list":["post-31835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-boss","tag-extending","tag-food","tag-ireland","tag-labelling","tag-madness","tag-northern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31837,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31835\/revisions\/31837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}