Every since the end of the Brexit transition period on January 1st, customers at the 20 Marks & Spencer food stores in Paris and its suburbs have been sharing photos of empty shelves as deliveries fail to arrive from the UK.
The application of the EU's strict rules on food imports from third countries appears to have caught the British grocery chain on the hop, and for weeks Paris M&S stores have seen no fresh food deliveries, leading to empty shelves.
Now one of the group's stores, the Chaussée d'Antin branch in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, has closed its doors for good, although a spokesman for the company said this was unrelated to the delivery problems.
@john_lichfield FYI Chaussé d’Antin location of M&S is officially closed. pic.twitter.com/AA4rSiG5PL
— Anne Stark Ditmeyer (@pretavoyager) February 8, 2021
Impressionnantes, les étagères vides de @marksandspencer à Paris, une semaine après le #Brexit.
En même temps, Boris Johnson avait prévenu : “Fuck business”. pic.twitter.com/MSgJs01NtZ— Marc Epstein (@MarcEpstein_) January 8, 2021
Popular with British residents and locals alike, M&S has been something of a success story with 21 of its Food Hall stores in France, one in Lille and the rest in Paris and its suburbs.
❌ Dans l'enseigne @marksandspencer du Boulevard Montmartre, au cœur de Paris, les clients font grise mine devant les rayons vides de plats préparés. Certains s'interrogent même sur l'avenir de la chaîne. https://t.co/TypQpllZmI
— Le Figaro (@Le_Figaro) January 5, 2021
Asked previously about the empty shelves, an M&S spokesman said: “As we are transitioning to the new processes, it is taking a little longer for some of our products to reach stores.
“But we are working with our partners, suppliers and relevant government agencies and local authorities to quickly improve this.”
A company spokesman added on February 10th that it was not possible to put a timeframe on this.
M&S chairman Archie Norman had warned as far back as August 2018 of this particular Brexit risk.
“If our lorries are sitting in a lorry park near Dover for half a day, that would be the demise of the great M&S sandwich in Paris,” he told The Financial Times.
The sandwiches and other meals for the retailer's French food stores are made in a factory in central England.
Norman suggested that setting up production in France was not a viable proposition.
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M&S have only had 5 years to prepare for this. The factory in central England, where the food is prepared met EU standards up to 31st December 2020 but from the 1st January 2021 the paperwork was not in place to prove compliance. They have no one to blame but themselves for ‘being caught on the hop’ as your article states. Ironically, all products bought in by M&S have to meet stringent compliances standards but maybe they thought that they themselves would be exempt! Think again. Get your ducks in a row and sandwiches back on the shelves. What a ridiculous situation that could have been completely avoided with some organisation and aforethought.
I totally agree that this sounds like M & S were totally unprepared after years of being able to work on the logistics. Just what has their managment been doing? And frankly from a business point of view establishing a factory in France would seem to solve a lot of problems and also give them another larger entry into the EU market from which to expand. But it seems good business practices are not important to M & S.
The details of the EU-UK deal weren’t finalised until the last minute – so they didn’t know what exactly is going to happen. They could have assumed the worst and spent more to prepare – but which business will choose to do it voluntarily, especially during pandemic?
Shame, but I guess M&S can get by without the income from the French food stores if there’s too much bother importing etc.
I hope Marks and Spencer have a decent redundancy package for their poor employees than they have for their deluded long – suffering customers who are addicted to good old British stodge.
Stodge?
‘Stodge’ is quicker than typing “Overpriced processed sh!te”. But I’ve got time on my hands these days….
Pity you have time on your hands.
Whatever your name is?
Solid or fionasteph6??? BUGGY comment software???
I don’t care … I love M&S food … especially their salads.
But I’m disappointed with them for not preparing for Brexit in advance.