Cheshire Cheese Company purchased by Joseph Heler Cheese, which has retained an EU presence but left the UK.
A British cheesemaker has sold his business to a bigger rival to recover access to customers in the European Union after Brexit left him with an estimated £600,000 gap in lost EU sales.
Simon Spurrell, who made headlines when he drew attention to prohibitive export costs after the UK departed from the single market, will continue to be managing director of the Macclesfield-based Cheshire Cheese Company and maintains a stake in the business.
Its new owner, fellow family-run north-west England producer Joseph Heler Cheese, has retained a presence in the EU because of its huge operations and distribution hub in the Netherlands, which Spurrell expects will make supplying European customers possible again.
Spurrell said he was delighted to be going back to the continent following an absence of two years but still cannot believe how the government destroyed small companies like his with their decision to opt for a hard Brexit.
He said:
“The sad thing is that small businesses like ours cannot have access to the EU. Selling the company is a great solution … it secures the future of the company with a historical cheesemaker. But I still feel very let down and bitterly disappointed by the fact I’ve had so many conversations with the Department for International Trade and government ministers and nothing happens.”
“They are impotent because of their Brexit policy. They are so anti-Europe that they won’t even discuss getting a better deal sorted out. Getting access to the single market has to be the first step.”
Spurrell asserts that after his campaign in the press in 2021 to draw attention to his case, he was told by many people that Boris Johnson had regarded him as “that bloody cheese man”.
Government departments urged him to pursue new business in “emerging markets”, advice he said was ludicrous given the huge market on Britain’s doorstep. Spurrell started the business in 2010 selling wax-wrapped truckles of cheese and won very many awards for 15 artisan varieties including Cheshire, cheddar, and royal blue.
It expanded by almost 30% a year and by 2019 he had decided to invest £1m in a warehouse in Macclesfield to satisfy orders in Europe for prevailing favorites including Irish whiskey and stem ginger cheddar, a gold winner at the International Cheese Awards.
But when Brexit export rules took effect he was slammed with veterinary certificate charges of up to £180 on retail orders to consumers in the EU – even for those purchasing personal gift packs worth £30 – making his business unrealistic overnight.
Last year, the first year of Brexit trading operations, he took a loss of £240,000 in wholesale and consumer business in Europe and was looking at an additional hold of £350,000 in 2022. And although surging domestic demand during the pandemic reduced the losses, he could not see a route to go back to the single market as a small business.
Spurrell said the partnership with Joseph Heler, a much greater concern, provided strategic means of managing costly Brexit trade barriers. He added:
Buy Crypto Now“If you are large enough you can mitigate the increased costs because the cost of the paperwork for one pallet of cheese can be spread across 100 pallets. It will also benefit all the customers in the EU because they can get a local delivery rate.”
He said the deal, which was agreed upon for an undisclosed sum, was also exciting news for his staff. All head office, warehouse, and production employees will be retained while another 14 full and part-time jobs will be created.
“We were very worried about this Christmas. We didn’t know what was going to happen and my primary thought was for all the guys here with me. They are all now catered for with this fantastic company that we’ve joined … it gives our team a bit of future security.”
George Heler, the group managing director of Joseph Heler, said:
“We’re delighted to welcome the Cheshire Cheese Company … Together, we’re confident we can extend its reach across the UK and Europe.”
Numerous businesses and consumers have been affected by extra Brexit costs since 2020 with additional delivery costs sometimes making sales to and purchases from Europe extremely expensive.
A recent analysis of trade statistics by the Economic and Social Research Institute indicates that trade from the UK to the EU was 16% lower than if Brexit had not taken place.
