British Mussel Exporter Faces £150,000 Loss After Shipments Rejected by French Customs
A major UK mussel exporter has lost £150,000 after three of its shipments to the EU were blocked by French customs in recent weeks.
Offshore Shellfish, a family-owned business in Devon, has continued exporting blue mussels to European buyers post-Brexit, despite increased administrative demands. However, last month, French customs officials at Boulogne-sur-Mer stopped three out of four of its lorries from entering the EU, citing various reasons described by the company’s commercial director, Sarah Holmyard, as "subjective and inconsistent."
“We’ve sent hundreds of shipments since Brexit without any rejections,” Holmyard told *CuriosityNews*. “While we’ve had minor paperwork issues before, we had never had our mussels turned away until now—three times in just one month.”
The mussels are cultivated on ropes in Lyme Bay, off the coast of south Devon. Most are sent to the Netherlands for processing, with many later sold in Belgian restaurants and supermarkets, where they feature in the national dish *moules-frites*. Few consumers in Belgium may realize that some of their meals include mussels grown in British waters.
All three rejected shipments had to be destroyed at the company’s expense. Holmyard said they were no different from previous deliveries, leaving the business puzzled and facing an unexpected financial burden.
“The inconsistency makes it impossible to plan,” she said. “Right now, it feels like a lottery whether shipments get through—and that level of unpredictability is unmanageable.”
Since Brexit, animal and plant product shipments between the UK and EU require health certificates and veterinary checks, along with strict inspections under sanitary regulations. Live bivalve molluscs, including mussels, oysters, and clams, face particularly rigorous EU rules and can only enter untreated if harvested from the highest-quality waters. While Offshore Shellfish operates in “Class A” waters for most of the year, much of England and Wales does not meet this standard.
Shellfish exporters and other food producers are expected to benefit from the recent UK-EU agreement aimed at reducing such checks, though challenges remain. With limited domestic demand for mussels, most UK-caught shellfish and seafood are exported to Europe, making border reliability crucial for businesses.
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