UK SPS Food Imports from 2024: How can "Groupage" help?
- Arne Mielken
- Dec 9, 2023
- 6 min read
The UK offers the facilitation of group loads of SPS goods - a major facilitation for EU businesses. But how does it work? We have a look.
What is Groupage in a nutshell?
Groupage refers to the transportation of several consignments, each requiring a separate health certificate, in a single vehicle or container.
Before exporting, consignments might be collected from many pick-up sites or pooled at a hub.
It may also apply to a variety of goods that are combined into a single consignment, each of which has a single health certificate and satisfies the same fundamental requirements. Businesses that ship sanitary and phytosanitary goods by groupage into Great Britain must create arrangements in advance, considering that different items may have different requirements.
How can Groupage facilitate the import of SPS goods into the UK?
By offering a risk-calibrated regime, the UK Border Target Operating Model (TOM) plans to make it simpler for groupage movements to continue:
LOW-RISK GOODS
Low risk animal products won't be required to get an export health certificate in order to enter Great Britain and won't be automatically subject to routine border checks. This will simplify the management of groupage loads containing low risk items. The classification of 90% of sanitary and phytosanitary goods as low risk confirms groupage's ongoing viability as an industrial strategy.
MEDIUM RISK GOODS
There will be fewer physical and identity inspections at the border for medium-risk animal products for imports from the rest of the globe.
HIGH-RISK GOODS
High-risk animals and animal products are seldom transported under groupage but are virtually always certified and subject to border checks.
NO EXPORT HEALTH CERTIFICATE? NO PROBLEM
For commodities that do not need an export health certificate, the challenge of getting a certificate for groupage loading will be avoided. If goods are subjected to no regular, or little, physical and/or identity checks at the border, they are less likely to be retained for inspection as part of a mixed cargo.
Logistical challenges and increase costs
It is accepted that obtaining several Export Health Certificates for diverse shipments within a single cargo may provide logistical challenges and increase costs for business owners handling smaller shipments.
The UK says that the government has developed a variety of solutions to aid in overcoming these challenges to make the import of medium-risk animal products under the Border Target Operating Model easier. The major goal is to streamline the process while maintaining high biosecurity and public health protection standards.
Two Straightforward Groupage Operational Models to Bring Facilitation
The UK TOM focuses on two key operating models"Consolidation Hub" and the "Multiple Pick-up" operating models, which are the two key operating models. These models might be a useful tool for traders to employ in their operational planning.
Businesses that deal in large quantities should use the "Consolidation Hub" strategy, which facilitates the collection of various consignments at a single hub and subsequently simplifies certification.
For businesses with smaller volumes, the "Multiple Pick-up" model, which permits the collection of individual consignments from numerous places and includes certification at each pick-up point, is acceptable.
Seal Requirements
The UK says they have also changed the official seal requirements for both operating models to ensure fairness and equal management of groupage loads.
Official seals for animal products will only be required by British authorities in cases where the Export Health Certificate explicitly requests them.
Merchants are permitted to use their own transportation security measures and to discriminate between separate consignments within a groupage or mixed load unless the Export Health Certificate or the Competent Authority stipulates otherwise.
Simplified certification and the use of timetables aim to make grouping animal products easier.
As part of the UK'S efforts to simplify groupage imports, they have created streamlined Export Health Certificates. The length of these new certificates, which are accessible online, is reduced while still upholding the essential sanitary and phytosanitary biosecurity criteria. For example, to further promote groupage, they use inclusive "and/or" phrases rather than the exclusive "either/or" statements used in prior Export Health Certificates. This indicates that goods that meet several standards, unlike in the past, may now be certified jointly onto a single Export Health Certificate. For example, egg products that have undergone a variety of treatments to reduce the risk of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza can now be certified collectively on a single Export Health Certificate, provided they meet all other requirements of the certificate (like being dispatched from the same EU-approved premises).
Animal Product Classification: Increasing Notifiers' Flexibility
The UK is considering allowing notifiers additional latitude to supply dynamic data outside of the pre-designated hours in order to reduce logistical burden. The capacity of "Groupage" to replace vehicle registration information will be the first convenience.Several situations constitute an exception to this rule: The transport/vehicle information in the Export Health Certificate must be verified by the appropriate Certifying Officer (CO) if the Export Health Certificate or a related guideline calls for a means of transport inspection. Additionally, at the pre-notification stage of the IPAFFS system, specific transport/vehicle information must be provided. Failure to comply with this requirement might result in the documentation checks failing.
animal product grouping: specific pilots for Trusted Trader 191. We'll launch the Certification Logistics Pilot in January 2024. This pilot will lower the cost of recertifying groupage loads before they depart from an EU consolidation centre. If the first stage of the pilot is successful, we could think about extending it.
We acknowledge that groupage movements continue to be an issue for those who are involved in the transportation of medium-risk animal products, and we intend to work closely with them in the months prior to January 31, 2024, to test additional facilitations, such as concepts that will benefit traders who use multiple-pickup and multiple-dropoff models.
list of plants and products made from plants
There are currently a number of different plants and plant-based products that may be covered by a phytosanitary certificate for plants, which is not commodity-specific. This suggests that a single certificate may cover the whole cargo, regardless of the number of different plants and plant products it contains. While being transported, a groupage load of plants and plant products may change in composition without affecting the phytosanitary certificates given to the other consignments in the load. After the phytosanitary certificate has been issued, the composition of the individual consignments cannot change. For imports from outside the EU, especially those carried by RoRo boats that traverse the EU, this strategy is often adopted.
When one product in a consignment requires a physical check but the other products do not, it can be necessary to divert the whole consignment for a check. We will work with importers and logistics firms who move mixed consignments in order to make sure that complexity and cost are kept to a minimal under the new model.
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