The owner of an Irish dairy brand has stockpiled tens of thousands of British cheeses in the United Kingdom in fears of a no-deal Brexit.
If Britain does not come to a deal, every tonne of cheddar imported into the country will have a £189 (NZD366) tariff, with even bigger tariffs for butter.
By stockpiling the nearly 40,000 tonnes of cheese, the company will continue to be able to supply its United Kingdom customers for another four to six months without paying any extra charges.
It would be mean cheddar production costs would soar in Ireland, making the prices rise dramatically in the United Kingdom.
Ireland has benefited from the British population’s appetite for cheese, in particular, cheddar which accounts for almost 55 percent of all British household purchases. Ireland’s damp weather and low population means the country has the ideal conditions and room for dairy farming and produces much more milk than it can drink.
Unsurprisingly, over 90 percent of the cheese Ireland produces is cheddar.
