Some small wholesalers are taking their business out of Northern Ireland

Some small specialist wholesalers have said they may leave the Northern Irish market, as increased costs incurred by border check mean it’s no longer ‘worth their while.’

Cotswold Fayre and Suma Wholefoods both have said business in NorthernIreland is affected. Once the grace period runs out at the end of March, they expect they’ll pull out of the market here. t

Customs agents are charging per product type sent, so for a wholesaler shipping varied loads of potentially hundreds of different items, this has wiped out all profitability on sales to the Republic of Ireland.

Suma Wholefoods made the decision last week to halt sales to Northern Ireland because of the disruption. The move has quickly impacted convenience stores in the region who often use Suma as a “one stop shop” for organic and natural foods.

“They contacted us last week because we were planning on expanding our offer with them for a bigger refill station but they told us they can’t supply us anymore,” an NI based manager for  Eurospar said. “This was a project we were thinking of doing after Easter, but now we won’t be able to.”

Suma confirmed that “all NI trade is on hold until we sort out a whole raft of issues post-Brexit” as it had become “virtually impossible” to trade.