From the end of 2023 it will be mandatory to send the plant certificate when exporting fruits and vegetables to the United Kingdom. These materials must be physically verified and meet the applicable phytosanitary requirements for certification. In collaboration with Quality Produce International, Marni Fruit and Growers United, JEM-id has begun research into new developments in the fruit and vegetable software package GreenCommerce. Several specific developments have emerged from this research that will ensure that new manufacturing companies are well prepared for the next Brexit phase.
Situational Painting: The Next Brexit Phase
The specific country-setting requirements for imported products (in this case fruits and vegetables) in relation to plant diseases and pests are plant health requirements. Phytosanitary documents, including related studies, are mandatory when importing into the United Kingdom (UK). A phytosanitary test can be requested through e-CertNL, after which the shipment will be evaluated by the Quality Control Bureau (KCB) at the specified location. If the products do not meet the phytosanitary requirements of the country of joining, they will not be allowed to export. This can have an impact on the logistics process, making it impossible to deliver parts of the ship or have to relocate to other parties as much as possible.
“Mandatory new legislation will have a major impact on the day-to-day operational performance of export companies, logistics service providers, but also KCB,” begins Berry van Gijp, JEM-id’s implementation expert and Brexit expert: “In early 2018, Brexit- We’re ahead of GreenCommerce, which started with specific improvements. Brexit has been postponed several times, and the urgency to make arrangements for it has diminished.
Anita Khyber, quality manager at Marni Fruit, continues: “The launch has now been postponed to 2023, but it is absolutely necessary to automate this whole process. This will create an additional workload for the inspector, who will soon have to carry out a phyto-inspector in addition to quality inspections.
The UK is the main seller of Marni fruit. “By the time we prepared ourselves for approval in early February, the matter had already received the attention it deserved in the JEM-id. As a result, the rest of the process went very smoothly. Thanks to the good communication with Berry, we were informed of various planned improvements. And at our request some additions were made to the planned developments, which were followed by a clear demo with explanation. We enjoyed this too, ”says Anita.
JEM-id enhancements
Due to the new phytosanitary requirements of the United Kingdom, the number of study applications and certification issues will greatly increase. The entire sector feared long processing times due to capacity issues, especially during peak hours. To stay ahead of the expected problems, a corporate accreditation system has been developed as a solution to the broader task force with the representation of KCB, VGB / VBN, GFH & NVWA. NVWA and KCB will retain their supervisory role and oversight over certification. This institutional accreditation system is linked to a set of conditions that must be met before allowing fruit and vegetable companies to conduct independent phytosanitary testing.
To support these companies, JEM-id has added new enhancements to its fruit and vegetable software package, GreenCommerce, in partnership with customers. Within GreenCommerce it has become possible, among other things, to record the phytosanitary status of a party. This can be used to indicate whether a block meets the requirements or not. You can see the changes in the phyto level in the post and add notes to it. This way, important information can always be found in GreenCommerce.
Whether the phytosanitary checks are applicable can be indicated by the sales order. Based on this property, you can further verify the allotted space. The default issue (no verification or verification) will be based on the destination country, with the option to exclude specific items if applicable.
The fact that KCP can select random shipments for random testing is included in the company’s accreditation system. Improvements have also been made to Green Commerce so that they will not be exported until they are released.
Recording phyto-inspections in QC application
New phytosanitary checks also have implications for the research process of new manufacturing companies exporting to the UK. New functions have been added to the Quality Control (QC) application integrated with GreenCommerce to prepare companies for these checks. This makes it possible to perform phyto-studies in application in addition to existing quality tests. For example, accredited quality staff may no longer specify the phyto position with the block (s) being inspected.
When a new research template is created in the QC application, quality staff can distinguish between template for quality inspection and phyto-research. They may add additional phyto-research rules to this template.
Anita concludes: “We record phyto-inspections through the QC app. We can quickly specify whether a mandatory phyto-check should be done to a customer through Green Commerce. Loading restrictions in the event of a random test by KCB are also arranged via GreenCommerce.
For more information:
JEM ID
Phone: +31 (0) 174 642 622
[email protected]
www.jem-id.nl
