The complexity of moving goods from Britain to NI has meant a major food service firm is looking to source more products from the island of Ireland.

Andrew Lynas from Coleraine-based Lynas Food Service said his firm is facing a raft of extra paperwork due to the NI protocol.

Speaking to a committee of MPs on Wednesday, Lynas gave the example of mozzarella cheese which his company has bought from the same supplier in England for 25 years.

He said before Brexit, the transaction would simply involve a purchase order and the cheese would arrive seven days later.

We are genuinely considering buying that product from the island of Ireland, because it is just so much easier

“From 1 January, and on the presumption of no grace period, but even because we are selling this product to southern Ireland, so it is seen as ‘at risk’, we now have eight different steps that we have to take for that exact same transaction,” Lynas said.

“We are genuinely considering buying that product from the island of Ireland, because it is just so much easier,” he added.

Preference

During the briefing, Lynas maintained that sourcing products from NI and the Republic of Ireland has always been his preference, but he acknowledged that this often did not happen in practice.

“There are moments when we can’t. There are products that either aren’t made competitively, or they aren’t made on the island of Ireland,” he said.