FELIXSTOWE, England (Reuters) -

In just one month of post-Brexit trading, British logistics expert Jon Swallow has seen exports dive, prices rise and customers so desperate that he is practically offering a counselling service.

Swallow is one of thousands of freight forwarders and customs brokers based around Britain’s biggest ports who have described the overnight introduction of a full customs border as akin to the country placing economic sanctions on itself.

Britain’s New Year’s Eve departure from the European Union’s orbit after 47 years of membership means exporters must now provide customs and safety declarations, health checks and rules of origin details to trade with its biggest partner.

We are now at a disadvantage to people trading within the EU,” Swallow, a co-director of Jordon Freight, told Reuters in his office next to the vast cranes that tower over Felixstowe docks, Britain’s biggest container port, on the south east coast of England.

“We’re a very fast-paced business, but now we’re just like walking through mud. There’s just paperwork everywhere.”
Those companies that trade goods between Britain and the bloc are paying a price, particularly small firms.

"It is day eight in a depot in Lymm just outside Warrington, Cheshire and a lorry carrying frozen carrots and mixed herbs is still waiting for clearance to board a ferry from Birkenhead to Belfast".
"because the paperwork for a single pallet of carrots is missing key information"

**Guardian Report**

Hundreds of miles away in Lisburn in Northern Ireland, the haulage firm’s operations team have had no luck in persuading the British supplier that the carrots that were ordered on 27 December are now, in the third week in January, classed as an export

and must be accompanied by a litany of documents and certificates before the trailer can be cleared to board the ferry at Birkenhead.
Another supplier on the lorry had been struggling with the documentation requiring it to supply what is known as an “Incoterms”, which determines

who pays the duty in any tariff but also establishes a specific record as to who is the importer. But that was resolved on day seven.
Then there was also the supplier who had provided a commodity code that was two digits short. A simple key stroke mistake could be difference

between the lorry getting the red or the green light for entry to NI.
“It took half a day yesterday for me to clear the supply chain. I’ve got one more issue to go,” says the visibly stressed operations man simultaneously dealing with a sheaf of about 30 documents for

Public notice from Hannants: UK's biggest model kit & accessories supplier

"There are still problems with sending parcels to the EU. To date only 3 parcels we sent have been delivered. Some are still in England. Some are in europe. We cannot find out what the problems are but .

suspect it is incorrect paperwork.
We are very sorry but we cannot start taking orders knowing that these problems exist. We are going to have to wait longer before we can re-open for EU orders but we cannot say when that will be. We cannot feed 100s of orders a day into a system

that is not working knowing they may not go anywhere.
Also bizarrely the new Royal Mail system can only accept parcels with 20 items or less in them. More than half the orders we send have more than 21 items in them. Parcelforce can take packages with any quantity of contents.

So somehow our website now needs to be modified so that if customer wants 20 items they see the Royal Mail/Parcelforce postage options but if there are more than 20 items they only get the Parcelforce option. We do not want to start work on that change at the moment.

We are no longer able to reply to emails asking when we will be opening up for EU orders. We are sorry but we do not know and we have no way to find out. Please see the message on the home page for the latest information.
DPD is still a problem and there has been little progress.

When we had a [Brexit] deal, I thought, we're saved all the rigmarole and hassle, it'll work sweet as a nut, but it hasn't happened," says Mr Flannigan. Instead, he says, it feels like the clock's been turned back 30 years
People really don't have a "sweet as a nut" clue do they?

Yes "30 years" and worse ..because you are now outside the Single Market & "worse" outside the Customs Union too . You're now trading under conditions more like Belarussia into EU without the customs & logistical capacity to handle the volumes. Your business will most likely fail

This was always so ..regardless of the "deal" esp with "87% of Berwick Shellfish's £1.7m sales go to France, Spain and Germany"
Next....
"The real test for me is the next two to three weeks, as inventory is depleted and orders increase," says Mr Munro.

"He thinks there's a window of opportunity now, for the authorities to fine tune the system before volumes are ramped up" .. "fine tune" Oh FFS...!! wake up.

The BBC report a litany of businesses not understanding the "deal" was always going to mean being outside the SM/CU

"Mr Dormer fears the "massive amount of aggravation" could mean business partners on the continent start to look elsewhere.".....errrr ...yes.

Note how though the report leads with a suggestion of EU "pettiness"

TRAGIC..
"And so it came to pass that alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson travelled to Brussels to personally take charge of the Brexit trade deal negotiations. He alone could break the deadlock, put the dastardly Eurocrats in their place and snatch victory

H/T @PatHarrison2
A decent report from the NY Times...
"As the new year made Brexit a reality, Tony Hale encountered the pitfalls of Europe’s redrawn geography. Specifically, he confronted the need to extricate 53 tons of rotting pork products from administrative purgatory

a port in the Netherlands.
For more than two decades, Mr. Hale’s company had shipped pork to the European Union without customs checks, as if the United Kingdom and the continent across the water were one vast country.

With Britain now legally outside the bloc,

exporters suddenly had to navigate inspections, safety regulations & a bewildering crush of paperwork.
For Mr. Hale, incorrectly prepared documents meant sending five containers full of pork to an unplanned final destination : the incinerator.
“It’s a new game,& we have to learn”

Mr. Hale said. “We are having to double- and triple-check every document.”
In the early days of the post-Brexit era, Britain is struggling to adapt to its new position in the global economy — its fortunes still tethered to the European Union; its companies now on the outside.

The trade deal Britain struck late last year with the European Union stopped tariffs from being imposed on goods exchanged across the English Channel, but did not prevent the revival of customs procedures, health and safety checks, value-added taxes on imports, and other